Access to your personal information matters. It can affect parole decisions, licence conditions, recall, risk assessments, and whether mistakes are ever corrected. The law gives you a right to see information held about you. When the information is about you personally, this is called a Subject Access Request (SAR). When the information is about how a public body operates more generally, it is called a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.
A Subject Access Request should always be made through the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). This is critical. When you submit a SAR via the ICO, the request is sent through the ICO’s own systems. The organisation receiving it cannot later claim they “never received it”. This removes a common excuse used by government departments.
If you send a SAR yourself by post, you pay for printing, envelopes, stamps, and time. If you send it by email, departments often claim it never arrived. This happens repeatedly across government bodies. Using the ICO avoids this entirely and creates an independent audit trail.
There is another important issue people are rarely told. Different government bodies redact information differently depending on whether you are in prison, on licence, or fully released. Each organisation focuses on protecting itself. This means a single SAR often comes back heavily redacted, sometimes with entire pages blacked out.
A practical way to deal with this is to submit separate SARs to different agencies about the same events. For example: the police, probation, prisons, and the CPS. Each body tends to redact information that reflects badly on itself, but leaves in material written by the other agencies. When you compare the responses side-by-side, information missing from one reply often appears unredacted in another. This significantly increases your chance of seeing the full picture rather than a heavily edited version of your own history.
If possible always submit your Subject Access Requests through the ICO.
Why Access to your personal information matters
To request a SAR from the HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), you can use the following email addresses:
Request a basic DBS check
Apply for a basic Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check to get a copy of your criminal record. This is called ‘basic disclosure’. It’s available for people working in England and Wales.
It currently costs £21.50.
Apply to find a prisoner’s location
Use this service to find someone in prison if you do not know which prison they are in.
The prisoner must give their permission for their information to be shared.
You can only use this service to find someone in an English or Welsh prison.
To apply, you’ll need:
the prisoner’s name (or any other name they may have used)
the prisoner’s date of birth or age - if you know it
their prisoner number - if you have it
You’ll get a reply to your application within 4 weeks.
Send money to someone in prison
You can use this service to make a payment by Visa, Mastercard or Maestro debit card. Money usually takes less than 3 working days to reach a prisoner’s account, but it may take longer.
This service is free, secure and available in all prisons in England and Wales.
You can no longer send money by bank transfer, cheque, postal order or send cash by post to any prison. You’ll need to use a debit card instead.
Prisons in England and Wales
Find information on prisons and young offender institutions in England and Wales, including how to arrange visits and how to stay in touch with prisoners.
Request information from Prison Service and National Probation Service
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