united-kingdom gdpr police
If one requests bodycam footage of a police encounter involving another person, would they be notified of the request?
<p>If party A calls the police on party B and they attend, then party B is entitled to request the bodycam footage of the encounter under the GDPR. If party B performs such a request, and party A appears in the footage, would party A be notified of party B's request?</p>

<p>Law enforcement activities are out of scope of the GDPR, though there is a similar right to access in section 45 of the Data Protection Act 2018. Access to police bodycam footage can be denied or restricted on various grounds, including to protect the rights and freedoms of others. A separate right to access information held by public authorities is part of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, but it exempts the applicant's own personal data and refers to the DPA 2018 for further restrictions of this right – FOIA is just a fallback in case access is not regulated otherwise.</p>
<p>If necessary to protect the rights and freedoms of party A, the footage released to B could be redacted in order to protect A. However, since A and B were both present the footage would not disclose information that B didn't already have. Therefore, redaction might not be appropriate. Given that there is no clear legal guidance and that all of this is context-dependent, I'd expect this to come down to the internal policies of the police department handling the access request.</p>
<p>I see no grounds that would require A to be alerted when footage is released to B. A could also make a request to access their data, and should receive information about “the recipients or categories of recipients to whom the personal data has been disclosed”, but this might be limited to protect B.</p>
