May 23, 2025 | Operational Policing, Investigations and Events , Forensics
Request Number: FOI/14659
Category: Operational policing, Investigations and Events - Forensics
Subject: Requests Made to Dating App Platforms
Request and Answer:
Your request for information below has now been considered. In respect of Section 1(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) We can confirm that the Police Service of Northern Ireland does hold the information you have requested however it is estimated that the cost of complying with your request for information would exceed the “appropriate costs limit” under Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. We have explained to you below that when PSNI estimates whether the appropriate limit is likely to be exceeded, it can include the costs of complying with two or more requests if certain conditions are met. In this case those conditions are met and complying with all of your requests would in our estimation exceed that appropriate limit set out in Regulation.
We have explained this further below but also we followed the Information Commissioner’s Office guidance ‘Requests where the cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit’ in relation to this request, which also provides further detail on the application of Section 12 (1) of the FOIA. This guidance is available on the ICO website at the following link:
https://ico.org.uk/media/for- organisations/documents/1199/costs_of_compliance_exceeds_appropriate_limit.pdf
Request 1
The number of requests your police force has made to dating app or dating website platforms (e.g., Tinder, Bumble, Grindr, Hinge, Plenty of Fish, Match.com, Feeld, etc.) regarding investigations or incidents, for each of the past two calendar years (e.g.,2023 and 2024).
Request 2
For each year, please break down the number of requests by platform, if recorded.
Request 3
If available, please also provide a brief description of the types of incidents that led to the requests (e.g., sexual assault, fraud, harassment), noting that no personally identifiable information is requested.
Answers
Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires the Police Service of Northern Ireland, when refusing to provide such information (because the cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit) to provide you the applicant with a notice which states that fact.
It is estimated that the cost of complying with your request for information would exceed the “appropriate costs limit” under Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Section 12 of FOIA allows a public authority to refuse to deal with a request where it estimates that it would exceed the appropriate limit to either comply with the request in its entirety or confirm or deny whether the requested information is held. The estimate must be reasonable in the circumstances of the case.
The ‘appropriate limit’ is currently £600 for central government and £450 for all other public authorities including PSNI. The relevant Regulations which define the appropriate limit for section 12 purposes are The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees)
Regulation 2004 SI 2004 No 3244. These are known as the ‘Fees Regulations’ for brevity.
Regulation 4(3) of the Fees Regulations states that a public authority can take into account the costs it reasonably expects to incur in carrying out the following permitted activities in complying with the request:
(i) determining whether the information is held;
(ii) locating the information, or a document containing it;
(iii) retrieving the information, or a document containing it; and
(iv) extracting the information from a document containing it.
Under those regulations PSNI can calculate the time spent on each of these permitted activities at
£25 per hour (thus if the activity(s) takes more than 18 hours PSNI will be in excess of the ‘appropriate limit’).
When a public authority is estimating whether the appropriate limit is likely to be exceeded, it can include the costs of complying with two or more requests if the conditions laid out in Regulation 5 of the Fees Regulations can be satisfied. Those conditions require the requests to be:
- made by one person, or by different persons who appear to the public authority to be acting in concert or in pursuance of a campaign;
- made for the same or similar information; and
- received by the public authority within any period of 60 consecutive working days.
Regulation 5(2) of the Fees Regulations requires that the requests which are to be aggregated relate “to any extent” to the same or similar information. This is quite a wide test but public authorities should still ensure that the requests meet this requirement.
Enquiries made in relation to your request has identified that retrieval of information to respond to your request would exceed the FOI legislative cost of 18 hours as set by the Secretary of State. It is enquiries in relation to request 1 that has resulted in your request being deemed as an over cost and as answering requests 2 & 3 are dependent on having the data for request 1 there is no aspect of this request that can be answered within costs. We can advise that the information you have requested is not held in a format where the data is readily available or retrievable and by using drop down options on police IT systems we can only run searches for dating scam incidents.
Information on whether a dating scam incident involved a dating website and whether police made a request to a specific dating platform is not recorded in a way that would allow for it to be conveniently extracted from police systems. Therefore, in order to retrieve this data it would require a manual examination of all dating scam incidents for the timeframe specified to establish if a dating platform had been used and if so which one.
The relevant record owner has advised that for 2023 there were 108 dating scam incidents reported and for 2024 there were 144 dating scam incidents reported for a combined total of 252 incidents for the requested timeframe. The record owner also advised that it would require 10 minutes to review each incident to establish if it was relevant to this request and on this basis it would take approximately 42 hours to review all 252 incidents which would therefore be in excess of the 18 hour legislative cost threshold.
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter should be considered as a Refusal Notice, and the request has therefore been closed.
Advice and assistance
You may wish to submit a refined request in order that the cost of complying with your request may be facilitated within the ‘appropriate limit’. In compliance with Section 16 of the Act, we have considered how your request may be refined to bring it under the appropriate limit and unfortunately at present due to the way that these records are maintained we are not able to offer any refinement to your request other than records relating to dating scams in general.
Submission of a refined request would be treated as a new request, and considered in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, including consideration of relevant Part II exemptions.