Police equipment and technology
Speed cameras
The Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 states that safety cameras used to enforce compliance with speed limits must be 'type approved' by the Secretary of State before evidence from them can be used in court.
Type approval process
The type approval process provides a public assurance of the equipment’s accuracy and reliability. We manage the technical aspects of Type Approval.
The process for acquiring Home Office Type Approval has two parts:
- an ACPO TET (Association of Chief Police Officers Traffic Enforcement Technology Sub-Committee) part followed by
- a Home Office part
At the end of the process a formal agreement is made between the manufacturer and the Home Office. The agreement includes a section about commercial confidentiality.
Details of type-approved devices (new window) are on the Home Office Police website.
Freedom of Information and Type Approval
The Home Office aims to ensure that the Type Approval process is open and transparent. All the above information is publicly available free of charge.
However, the detailed technical information supplied to HOSDB by speedmeter manufacturers is exempt from disclosure under sections 41 and 43(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Section 41 of the FOI Act provides that information is exempt if the information was provided in confidence to the department and where its release could be considered an actionable breach of confidence. Section 43(2) of the FOI Act provides that information is exempt if 'its disclosure under this Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person (including the public authority holding it).'
Section 43(2) of the FOI Act is a qualified exemption and therefore the prejudice test and the public interest test have to be applied. The Home Office has judged that it would prejudice the commercial interests of speedmeter manufacturers if the information supplied by them were to be released. We also have evidence that the disclosure of such information would make it less likely that companies, or individuals, would provide us with commercially sensitive information in the future, undermining the ability of the Home Office to fullfill its role in type approving speedmeter devices. Section 41 is an absolute exemption and the public interest test does not apply.
