Code of Practice

This Code of Practice has been prepared in accordance with the provisions of Section 7 of the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner Act 2020 which provides that in furtherance of the Commissioner’s general function, the Commissioner must prepare, and may from time-to-time revise, a Code of Practice on the acquisition, retention, use and destruction of biometric data for criminal justice and police purposes in Scotland. 

This Code seeks to promote good practice, transparency, and accountability in Scotland by setting out an agreed framework of standards for professional decision-making which strikes the right balance between the needs and responsibilities of policing and our criminal justice system in terms of enforcing the law and keeping citizens safe, and the fundamental obligation to guarantee the basic human rights, privacy, and freedoms of individual members of the public.

The Code of Practice came into effect November 2022.

An easy read version of the Code can be found here.

Under Section 14 of the Scottish Biometric Commissioner Act 2020 the first statutory review of the Code of Practice has been published.