Code of practice 6 Code of practice (1) 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 15 and police purposes. (2) Once the Commissioner has prepared a draft code of practice, the Commissioner must submit it to the Scottish Ministers for approval. (3) The Scottish Ministers may approve a draft code of practice— (a) without modification, or 20 (b) with such modifications as they, with the consent of the Commissioner, consider appropriate. (4) If the Scottish Ministers do not approve a draft code of practice, they must give the Commissioner a statement of their reasons for not approving it. (5) Subsections (2) to (4) of this section and sections 7 to 10 apply to a revised code of 25 practice prepared under subsection (1) as they apply to the first code of practice. 7 Effect of the code (1) The following persons must have regard to the code of practice when exercising functions to which the code relates— (a) constables and police staff of the Police Service of Scotland, 30 (b) the Scottish Police Authority. (2) A court or tribunal in civil or criminal proceedings must take the code of practice into account when determining any question to which the code is relevant. (3) Failure to have regard to the code of practice does not of itself give rise to grounds for any legal action. 35 (4) The Scottish Ministers may by regulations amend subsection (1) so as to add a person or description of person, vary an entry listed in it, or remove an entry. (5) In this section, “constable” and “police staff” have the same meanings as in section 99(1) of the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012. 4 Scottish Biometrics Commissioner Bill 8 Consultation on the code (1) Before submitting a draft code of practice for approval under section 6(2), the Commissioner must consult— (a) the Scottish Ministers, 5 (b) the Lord Advocate, (c) the Lord Justice General, (d) the Faculty of Advocates, (e) the Law Society of Scotland, (f) the chief constable of the Police Service of Scotland, 10 (g) Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Constabulary in Scotland, (h) the Scottish Police Authority, (i) the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner, (j) the Information Commissioner, (k) the Scottish Human Rights Commission, 15 (l...