Thank you, convener. I will try to make them brief and not a two-minute exercise in Irish speed talking.
I will make a couple of brief opening comments about cyberkiosks and how policing uses technology to help to police and protect our citizens, who increasingly lead their lives online. The issue of cyberkiosks is a challenging one, but it is not unique to Police Scotland. I have experienced it in other jurisdictions and law enforcement agencies. Getting the right balance between the safety and security of the citizen and how we protect their privacy is a key responsibility of policing, and as policing increasingly tries to keep up with the technology that is used by criminals who are looking to cause harm to citizens across Scotland, we always have to be cognisant of that balance. Increasingly, we are policing with that technology in a regulatory and sometimes legislative environment that reflects the analogue age that we used to police in, and not the digital age that we police in now.
To that end, we really welcome the sub-committee’s scrutiny of the issue over the past number of months and beyond. It has really made us challenge ourselves about how we approach that difficult balance. It has led to the establishment of some key bits of architecture for us around reference groups, a more robust look at how we manage equality and human rights impact assessments and, specifically, victim consent forms. We really welcome that; it has added real value to what we do.
However, as I know all too well from my 30 years as a police officer and my previous role as a director in the National Crime Agency, the shocking scale and exponential rise of some forms of crime that are being exploited against our citizens—not least our children and vulnerable citizens, for example through child sexual abuse and exploitation—mean that we need digital evidence in order to protect our citizens and take abusers and offenders before the court. We have a statutory responsibility on behalf of the public in Scotland to use every single technology—legally and proportionately—to make sure that we can protect our citizens.
As I know the sub-committee has reflected, we have only ever acted in good faith on the issue, but I acknowledge, and we absolutely accept, that we should have reflected more on and spent more time considering the privacy issues from the outset. We should also have spent more time at an earlier stage getting clarity on the legal position in that regard.
When the chief constable appeared before the sub-committee on 31 January 2019, he made it clear that we would not consider introducing cyberkiosks until we were satisfied that we had that legal clarity and the confidence of the community that we serve. We think that we are very close to that position. We now have the legal clarity from the Crown Office, under whose direction we act, and from independent senior counsel, Murdo MacLeod. Over the past weeks, we have spent a lot of time with the Scottish Police Authority, including yesterday, and we will continue to discuss the issues with the SPA at its next public meeting on 22 May; we will also meet our reference groups again on 11 June to discuss Murdo MacLeod’s legal opinion. At that point, we think that we will be in that position of community confidence and legal clarity. As quickly as possible thereafter, we would like to roll out the devices.
As a result of the sub-committee’s engagement and scrutiny, we think that the process will be better, and we would like to apply the lessons learned to the increasing use of technology in policing over the next number of years. It is not something that will stop, because this will not be the last time that we use a new or innovative bit of technology.
Convener, thank you for your indulgence.