Home Office advice on issuing ASBO's

5.2 The two most relevant statutory provisions are section 115 of the Crime and Disorder Act and the Data Protection Act 1998:

• Section 115 provides that any person (whether a private individual or member of a public body) can lawfully disclose information, where necessary or expedient, for the purposes of any provision of the Act, to a relevant authority or a person acting on behalf of such an authority, even if he or she would not otherwise have this power. Under the Act "relevant authority" means: the chief officer of police, the police authority, the local authority, the probation committee or the health authority.

• The Data Protection Act exempts from its normal restrictions the disclosure of personal information, the provision of such data for the purposes of the prevention or detection of crime, or the apprehension or prosecution of offenders, and where failure to disclose would be likely to prejudice those objectives in a particular case.