Police ‘broke law’ on state snooper plan

POLICE Scotland has been accused of ‘breaking the law’ after sharing information on children under the Named Person initiative before it was deemed unlawful.

The SNP’s controversial scheme aimed to appoint a state guardian for every child, but this was struck down by the Supreme Court, which ruled last year that plans for information sharing breached European human rights laws.

But giving evidence to Holyrood’s education committee yesterday, Detective Chief Inspector Norman Conway said the force had shared information on child protection following the publication of guidelines by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in 2013, which were released ahead of the scheme’s implementation.

Following the Supreme Court ruling, the ICO was forced to tell the Scottish Government to remove the information.

Mr Conway said: ‘What has happened following the judgment is that we have really tightened up in terms of individual rights, we have really tightened up in terms of the information that has been shared... there is an improved practice of how we are dealing with information regarding children and young people.’

The original proposal would have allowed state guardians – mainly teachers and health visitors – to share private information about children with other public services without parental consent.

Education Secretary John Swinney has introduced watered down proposals. But Simon Calver, of the No To Named Person (NO2NP) campaign, said: ‘It has been publicly confirmed for the first time that for three years the police – and possibly other organisations who relied on the ICO advice – were routinely disclosing the private and confidential information of children and families in an outrageous invasion of privacy and human rights.

‘This was all happening before the scheme was fully implemented. Imagine what would have awaited families if the Supreme Court had not come to their defence?

‘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.’

In his evidence to the committee, Mr Conway also warned that ‘too much weighting’ on obtaining consent to share information could result in officers not getting it to the ‘right people at the right time’.