Police accused of breaking the law by sharing information on children

Anti-named person campaigners last night accused the police of breaking the law for three years after a senior officer admitted the force shared information about children’s well- being.

Appearing before Holyrood’ s Education Committee, DCI Norman Conway said information had been shared in line with guidance issued by the Information Commission Office ( ICO).

The ICO had published the guidance prior to the Supreme Court case which ruled that sections of the named person scheme advocating information sharing did not comply with the law.

After the Supreme Court judgement, the I CO was forced to tell the Scottish Government to remove its legally “inaccurate” advice.

DC I Conway told MSPs: “We have come through that journey where the I CO governance in 2013 we started to believe that we were on good grounds to actively share wellbeing information regarding children.

“Actually what’s happened followed the Supreme Court judgement is that we have really tightened up in terms of individual rights and we have really tightened up in terms of information that’ s being shared.”

Simon Calvert of the No to Named Person campaign said: “The named person scandal just gets worse and worse the more we hear about it.

“We now learn that for years the Scottish police have been breaking the law at the behest of the Named Person scheme. Were it not so serious it would be farcical. It’s now been publicly confirmed for the first time that for three years the police were routinely disc losing the private and confidential information of children and families in an outrageous invasion of privacy.”