Report detail

Joint Assurance Reviews (Commissioner)

DNA

In February 2025, the Commissioner laid his fourth joint Assurance Review on DNA before the Scottish Parliament. The DNA review was conducted in partnership with the Authority and with the Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science at the University of Dundee. The report explored the nature, extent, and impact of the use of DNA for policing and criminal justice purposes in Scotland.

The report highlighted the unique contribution that DNA can make to criminal investigations and how the SPA Forensic Services provide innovative DNA interpretation and analysis capability to criminal justice partners in Scotland.

However, the report also made seven recommendations for improvement. The recommendations related to:
• reviewing retention policy in circumstances where the accused is admonished or given an absolute discharge under summary procedure.
• developing written policy around the environmental storage of buccal mouth swabs.
• improving the governance around evidential DNA swabs.
• developing a joint biometrics strategy, delivery plan, and roadmap.
• Pursuing a core operating solution for forensics to which the management of DNA is linked.
• Reviewing the DNA Confirmed (DNAC) policy to reduce adventitious matches by having more DNA24 profiles on SDNAD.
• For Police Scotland to record the ethnicity of persons whose data is held on SDNAD to help promote confidence and discharge public sector equality duties

At the time of writing, Police Scotland and the SPA Forensic Services are making excellent progress with the various recommendations.
Retrospective Facial Search

In March 2025, the Commissioner laid his fifth joint Assurance Review on Retrospective Facial Search before the Scottish Parliament. The review was conducted in partnership with HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS). The report explored the use of a facial searching capability by Police Scotland within the UK Police National Database (PND) and a facial matching capability within the UK Child Abuse Image Database (CAID).

The report noted that whilst the use of the technology was lawful and ethical, it was not effective with 98% of searches yielding no potential intelligence leads.

The report contained four recommendations intended to strengthen policy, improve the quality of custody images, to give staff working with biometrics training on relevant legal frameworks and to improve management information.

Annual Report and Accounts for 2024/25 (Commissioner)

In my fourth annual report to Parliament, I acknowledge that the context for delivering policing in Scotland remains challenging, and that the demands on Police Scotland, the Scottish Police Authority and the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (PIRC) continue to evolve, placing additional pressures on the bodies to whom our functions extend.

I highlight to the Parliament that the SBC function has operated within budget for the fourth year in succession and highlight some of the achievements including extensive partnership working.

I also pay tribute to the hard working and resolute police officers and forensic scientists who serve our communities around the clock in Scotland, 365 days of the year. Their dedication to delivering public safety and security is something we should be proud of and is the bedrock of our safe and flourishing society.

First 3-year review of the Code of Practice (Commissioner)

In the first statutory review of the Code of Practice I report to Parliament on the operation of the Code in Scotland in the 3-year period since it was approved by the Parliament on 16 November 2022.

In doing so, I advise Parliament that Police Scotland, the SPA and the PIRC have remained compliant with the Code throughout that three-year period as validated by formal compliance assessments, through assurance reviews, and through the investigation of any complaints received.

I also advise the Parliament that despite more than 300,000 custody episodes and the issue of a biometrics leaflet to persons in custody since summer 2024, there have been only four substantive complaints made from data subjects, none of which have been upheld.

I also note the reduction in children having biometrics taken following arrest and congratulate Police Scotland, the SPA and PIRC for the way in which they have so willingly engaged with my office since 2021 and with the Code.

Finally, I signpost to Parliament that some minor updates to the Code will be consulted on through into 2026, with a view to laying an updated Code in the seventh session of the Parliament meaning that any revised version may not take legal effect until 2027.

Strategic Plan 2025 to 2029 (Director)

The Commissioner’s second four-year Strategic Plan sets out how our functions will be discharged in the period from 01 December 2025 until the current Commissioner demits office no later than 11 April 2029. The plan itself runs until 30 November 2029, meaning that his successor will inherit the final seven months of the plan allowing her/him a period of grace before developing a subsequent four-year plan of their own.

The plan was developed in consultation with key stakeholders and sticks with the tried and tested formula of conducting at least one thematic assurance review each year, working extensively in partnership, and ensuring that our work adds value without placing any unreasonable burden on the bodies to whom our functions extend.

The four proposed thematic assurance reviews through to 2029 are fingerprints, forensic imaging, images and voice recovered through digital forensics techniques, and Body Worn Video. There will also be a specific Outcomes Report in 2026 looking back at the first strategic plan, and there will be Code compliance assessments in 2027 and 2029, and the second review of the Code also in 2029.

It should also be noted that Scottish Government must review the Commissioner’s powers and functions and lay a report by November 2026. The Commissioner has consistently made the point that oversight could easily be extended to other areas of criminal justice where biometrics are acquired under domestic Scots law including prisons and has also highlighted opportunities in relation to a potential Code of Practice for public safety cameras in Scotland given the inexorable rise of AI and technologies involving face.

Winter work programme (Director)

Over the winter of 2025/26 and working in partnership with HMICS, the SPA, SPA Forensic Services and Police Scotland we will be conducting our sixth assurance review on fingerprints and the work is currently underway.

The report to Parliament in March 2026 will be the first significant report on fingerprints in Scotland since the Scottish Fingerprint Inquiry was published in 2011 and will chart considerable progress in the post-reform landscape.

Against that context, the Commissioner is grateful to the Authority both for the ongoing partnership working and for facilitating the two-year temporary secondment of senior fingerprint examiner Karen McBride to SBC until September 2027.

Finally, and resources permitting, we shall also commence consulting on proposed minor amendments to the Code of Practice, and we will also be commencing work on the bespoke Outcomes Report looking at the impact of our work conducted between 2021 and 2025.