Guidance on Information Sharing

There are two types of information that a NHW scheme may need to share.

1. Information about its members - the co-ordinator needs to have a record of members' names and contact details. Under the Data Protection Act, this information cannot be passed to others without the permission of the person to whom the details belong.

2. Information on suspects or criminals that the police may pass to a NHW scheme.

Further information about the sharing of both types of information can be found in the ACPO Policing and Watch Schemes Guidance on Information Sharing (Winter 2008) PDF 681Kb.

The guidance is the product of extensive work and subsequent consultation, which has included police-force Neighbourhood and Home Watch leads, representatives of the Neighbourhood and Home Watch movement, ACPO, the Home Office and the Information Commissioner's Office. This collaborative approach has enabled the revised guidance to be extended, not just to update the document, but also to include advice to Watch schemes on the use of CCTV and the keeping of incident diaries. Additionally, for those police services who have chosen to share personal data with Watch schemes in the form of details about ASBOs and information about persistent, prolific offenders, a template for an Information Sharing Agreement has been agreed with the Information Commissioner's Office. This model is based on the national template for information sharing, which adheres to ACPO and Home Office guidelines for the Management of Police Information (MOPI).

Chief Constables in England and Wales have been asked to adopt these guidelines in their force areas. For operational purposes, reference should always be made to the version of these guidelines as adopted by a particular force as Chief Constables may have been changes to the model guidance in order to better accommodate local factors.

To know more about the Data Protection Act, see Information Commissioner's Office