Meeting of the Parliament 01 December 2015
As ever, the member has got a bit confused on these matters, because the response that I gave to Neil Findlay in September related to covert surveillance matters, which are entirely different from the issue that we are discussing and relate to historical matters as well, as the member will be aware.
In relation to his specific point about this matter, when we became aware of it in July of this year, we asked Police Scotland for assurances that it was complying with the investigation that IOCCO was undertaking. What is important is that we recognise that IOCCO is the independent judicially led body that is responsible for the oversight of this area of policing not just by Police Scotland but by all police forces across the UK and all public bodies that can exercise the powers in question.
What the investigation by IOCCO has demonstrated is that that oversight mechanism has identified failings in Police Scotland in making sure that it went through the proper process for undertaking such acquisition of communications data. IOCCO recognises that Police Scotland has put in place a robust process to ensure that this type of thing cannot happen again. A thorough process has been gone through. I recognise that what Police Scotland did in breaching the code was unacceptable, but we now have an assurance from IOCCO that it has a procedure in place that can prevent that from happening again in the future. It will clearly continue to keep that under review as it reviews the way in which such procedures are used by Police Scotland and every other police force in the United Kingdom.