Police Scotland 'failing to take fingerprints of thousands of arrested people'

A new report has revealed that Police Scotland is failing to take the fingerprints of thousands of people it arrests each year.

The findings come from a joint review published on Tuesday by the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner, which examined whether the “acquisition, retention, use and destruction of fingerprints for policing and criminal justice purposes in Scotland is lawful, effective and ethical”.

The review team said the Scottish Police Authority’s forensic services had implemented all relevant recommendations from the Scottish Fingerprint Inquiry in 2011.

But it also found that while Police Scotland is legally allowed to take the fingerprints of any adult it arrests, its current policy is to do so only once a person has been charged with a crime and becomes “officially accused”.

The review said the approach differs from practices in other parts of the UK and carries a “significant risk”.

Investigators also discovered that many people officially accused do not have their fingerprints taken after arrest.

During a three-month period examined by the review, there were 3,202 cases where an officially accused person was arrested by Police Scotland but did not have their fingerprints recorded.

Based on the evidence gathered, the report suggests that over a full year more than 12,000 people with officially accused status may not be fingerprinted by custody staff – including some arrested for serious offences.

Scottish Biometrics Commissioner Dr Brian Plastow said: “Fingerprinting an arrested person is a critical step in the criminal justice process, providing the police with strong physical evidence of identity that ties suspects to evidence and crime scenes.

“Not fingerprinting someone who has been arrested and brought into custody results in lost investigative opportunities, both now and in the future.

“It means Police Scotland can’t use its Livescan fingerprint technology to verify the person’s identity in real time, preventing misidentification and any attempts to defeat the ends of justice.

“It means the arrested person’s prints can’t be searched against unidentified crime scenes – in the UK or internationally.

“And it can also result in criminal justice inefficiencies, including where the arrested person subsequently becomes an ‘officially accused’ but cannot then be traced to acquire criminal justice samples, including fingerprints.”

Fingerprints have been used in police investigations in Scotland and across the UK for more than 120 years, and remain the most established form of biometric evidence.

As of November 2025, Police Scotland held 831,014 fingerprint forms relating to 455,040 people on the UK law-enforcement fingerprint database IDENT1.

A further 1.1 million fingerprint forms were stored off-database in a national paper collection, including records from Scotland’s legacy police forces.

The report made ten recommendations, including introducing stronger oversight within the Criminal Justice Services Division, improving training for Livescan operators and restricting fingerprint deletion permissions to supervisory staff.

It also called for the digitisation of Scotland’s national fingerprint paper archive and legal checks to ensure all stored records are being held lawfully.

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “We take the findings of the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner Fingerprint Assurance Review seriously and will fully consider its recommendations.

“As part of dealing with the thousands of people brought into police custody every year, we capture a wide range of data and information, including fingerprints. On some occasions it may not be possible to obtain the fingerprint data due to an individual being in hospital or non-compliant, making it unsafe to do so.

“We are committed to capturing and retaining people’s data, including fingerprints, lawfully and in a proportionate manner and work is in progress to improve our custody processes.”