2022/25444 - Incidents caused by a challenge

REQUEST

 

I would like to submit a request under the Freedom of Information Act, for the following details, if held on record, to be disclosed.

 

• The number of incidents recorded by the force since 2018, in which a person has been injured by either:

 

• Participation in, or action inspired by, a challenge (or suspected challenge), which has been advertised online (may include reference to social media challenge, video, post or trend).
• Action which appears to have been taken with the intent (or suspected intent) to film its outcome for the purpose of posting online (may include reference to a phone or camera being found set up to record the action).

 

• The above figures, broken down by year and, if the data allows, the age range of victims (under 10, 10-17, 18-25, over 25).

 

• The number of deaths recorded since 2018 which make reference to one of the above criteria (this may include reference to death by misadventure), also broken down, if the data allows, by year and age range of victims.

 

 

RESPONSE

 

To provide the information for this request we have selected all Incidents and completed a keyword search of Snapchat, Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram and social media with the closing category of Crime Related, also the challenges of Socket, Salt and Ice, Nutmeg, Benadryl, Fire, Skull Breaker, Cha Cha Slide amongst others.

 

Please note that the key word search is restricted to the summaries, as a key word search of the full data log is not available. If the key words Snapchat, Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram social media and all challenges was not mentioned in the summaries, then it would not be highlighted for us to check.

Looking at Snapchat, Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram and Social media as a keyword the search returned 1525 incidents, as each summary would need to be checked to ensure it meets the requirements of this request, it would exceed the timeframe of 18 hours as each record would take approximately 2 minutes to view.

 

1525 Incidents x 2 minutes = 3050 minutes = 50.8 hours

 

Therefore, a Section 12 Excess Cost exemption has been applied.

 

Section 12 – Excess Cost

 

The exemption applicable to the information you have requested for this question can be found at Section 12(1) of the Act and this refusal notice is issued under Section 17.

 

Section 12(1) “does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.” 

 

In the case of a police force, the appropriate limit is set at £450, which is calculated at £25 per hour (i.e. 18 hours). Gwent Police would have to conduct a manual search to find and extract the information for this question. This would take more than 18 hours of staff time therefore we are unable to answer this question and the exemption is engaged.