I am writing to request the following information and responses to the following questions under the FOI Act.

1. A copy of your corporate policy on the use of social media in investigations. (please state if you do not have one). Please include any additional guidance/code of practice for this activity when it includes the monitoring or accessing of information published on social media that is either publicly available or requires additional access e.g. to be ‘friends’ with an individual, to have password and login details.
We do not have a corporate policy on the use of social media in investigations as we do not use social media as part of the investigations toolkit nor would we ‘friend’ someone to access information as this is illegal.

2. Does your Local Authority conduct overt and/or covert social media intelligence and/or monitoring? If the answer is yes, please explain what types– e.g. profiling individuals, conducting investigations, monitoring individuals/groups/ locations – if possible, state the purpose of such activity and how regularly it is used, including any recent relevant figures (for the last five calendar years, if available).
We currently do not use social media in investigations work.

3. If the Local Authority has conducted covert social media monitoring, please confirm the number of RIPA warrants obtained in the last five calendar years for this purpose. (2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22)
See above and because of this we have made no RIPA requests during the stipulated times.

4. Please confirm whether or not your local authority has purchased or uses software and/or hardware to conduct social network / social media monitoring and/or in relation to sentiment analysis.
WBC do not use social media specialised scanning software.

5. If you answered yes to 4), please state the name of the company or provider.
See above

6. If you answered no to 4), please, please state whether the local authority has developed internal methods to conduct social media / social network monitoring and be as specific as you can about these methods– when and how they are used and what happens to any data gathered.
WBC do not use internal methods of to monitor social media accounts or to conduct social media / social network monitoring.