A "suspicious incident"

Back in December, VicPD asked people to share a photo of someone they alleged was a “suspect from a suspicious incident.” When I FOI’d emails on how this press release came to be, they redacted his photo, citing privacy concerns. It’s still up on their website.

The release came to be because lead investigator Jordyn Tyler asked for it. VicPD PR staff then met with Brent Keleher to see if they were “accurately/appropriately reporting on it,” but VicPD’s media policy says they can pretty much publish what they want.

I also asked for related reports, which VicPD said were personal info. They’re wrong (properly redacted reports aren't personal info), but also fun is they said they couldn’t confirm whether such a police report existed. They published the file number in their press release.

In sum, VicPD will: publish someone's photo but call it sensitive personal info in an FOI; publish a file number then not confirm the file exists; and call a police report personal info (it is not intrinsically personal information) as a means to decide not to release anything.