Immigration

(asked on 22nd October 2020) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many times police have used Stop and Scan technology to gather data on individuals for immigration purposes in the last 12 months; and on how many of those occasions the police were operating (a) alone and (b) alongside Home Office immigration enforcement teams.


Answered by
Kit Malthouse Portrait
Kit Malthouse
This question was answered on 2nd November 2020

A Police Officer is able to use their Strategic Mobile device only when they suspect a person of having committed an offence and their identity is not known or cannot be ascertained, whether or not related to immigration. All data used as part of the Strategic Mobile check, including the results, are deleted and not stored on the phone. It is an operational matter for the police officer whether to contact the Home Office for further immigration details if this might be required as part of their investigation. This information is not recorded as part of the mobile search.

The latest available figures show that there have been 8,940 matches against the Immigration and Asylum Biometric System (IABS), when a police officer has made a Strategic Mobile search. The period covering this figure is March 2018 to May 2020.

There is no data available to identify whether, when making a Strategic Mobile search, a police officer was alone or alongside the Home Office Immigration Enforcement Team

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