Data on vessels passing the Pentland Firth at specific dates: EIR release

Information requested

Overview of how many vessels passed the Pentland Firth at specific dates? We are interested in the dates 6-7-8th of December 2023?

Response

The answer to your question is four fishing vessels over 12 metres in length passed through the Pentland Firth between 6-8 December 2023.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because an exception under regulation 11(2) (personal data relating to a third party) of the EIRs applies to that information. The reason why that exception applies is that a very small number of vessels submitted VMS positions in the specified area at the requested time so their data could be compared to other open-source data and lead to individuals connected to the vessels being identified. Therefore, disclosing details of those vessels could contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018.

This exception is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception.

Additional information provided out with the EIRs
Under regulation 9 of the EIRs (our duty to provide advice and assistance) we would like to advise you that only fishing vessels which exceed 12m in length are required to report their positions to the VMS system used by the Scottish Government. This means there may be fishing vessels under 12m in length and non-fishing vessels of any length using the area that are not required to report their positions to the system e.g. commercial traffic like cargo vessels, military etc, or pleasure craft e.g. yachts etc. 

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.