Police file grows by 100 names a day

Published on Tuesday 23 December 2008 20:42

A SCOTTISH police "criminal intelligence" database that contains personal information on 320,000 individuals is growing by nearly 100 names every day, The Scotsman can reveal.

But as police hail its importance in helping catch criminals, fears have been raised by politicians and civil liberties campaigners who say Scotland is fast becoming a "surveillance society" and that there are no checks and balances on how the database is compiled or used.

The Scottish Intelligence Database (SID) contains the details of more than 320,000 people suspected of being involved in criminal activity.

Some 60,000 names are added to the database every year, although about half that number are removed because there is no evidence they are breaking the law.

Critics are concerned it is only the police that decide which names are added and taken off, and they are calling for a more accountable system.

The SID contains more than a million pieces of information, including names, addresses, telephone numbers and records, and bank account details. Police say they retain only relevant information for each of the "nominals" – the term used for names – on the 11 million system.

But John Scott, a leading Scottish human rights lawyer, fears that the database's growth will mean the police infringing on innocent people's privacy – and he called for the police to publish an annual report on the SID to boost transparency and public confidence.

"There are equivalent implications on this system as there are for the DNA database, which has been held to be unlawful when the English system was challenged," he said. "Any intelligence system like this is only as good and robust as the safeguards and reviews to ensure innocent people's names on the database are removed.

"For that to be demonstrated, the police should be required to give information on removals from the database, perhaps in the form of an annual report.

"The more people are put on to these databases, the greater the risk of abuse or misuse.''

The Green MSP Patrick Harvie echoed his calls for greater regulation. He said: "It is vital that this database is not going unchecked and unregulated. Databases are becoming the tool of choice for the promoters of the surveillance society. We need proper oversight so the public can find out what is held on it so that inaccurate data can be removed."

Police chiefs say the SID, which was set up in 2003, has been an "incredible" boost in the fight against crime, allowing police to apprehend criminals much more quickly.

Detectives insist its growth reflects better intelligence gathering on people engaged in the full spectrum of crime.

The system, developed by the criminal intelligence IT firm ABM, was set up with a Scottish Executive grant of 5.8 million, and has annual running costs of 1.3 million.

Pat Shearer, chief constable of Dumfries and Galloway and chairman of the SID project board for the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, said it had made an "incredible" difference to policing.

"It's very difficult to make that assessment because it's so significant," he told The Scotsman. "It's so easy now for police officers to make those vital connections and have access to information that just wasn't there before.

"Intelligence is probably the life-blood of our organisation."

He said that, for the first time, the database allowed police across Scotland to share intelligence on criminal targets at the touch of a button.

Previously, each force had its own separate intelligence systems, with bigger forces having several distinct databases. Officers investigating a crime would have to ask other forces to run a name through their systems.

Often, they would require a reason to believe that person may have a link to that other force, whereas today police can carry out nationwide trawls for intelligence on a suspect in a matter of minutes.

In recent years, the system has been expanded to include the national ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) system, which uses a network of secret roadside cameras to detect and record suspect vehicles.

It is also linked to Visor – the national Violent and Sexual Offenders Register – a separate database of the country's most dangerous criminals.

Chief Inspector Andy Gosling, the SID project manager, insisted it was properly monitored on a regular basis. He said: "We will review those involved in the most serious crime every five years, and every three years for anything imprisonable. Everyone else is reviewed every year."

He added: "The biggest benefit for us is that we now have one single database. Before we were faced with a 'chicken and egg' situation. You had to know which forces to go and seek information from before you ask them.

"The names on the database are not just people in Scotland. They are people from across the UK and Europe too. But the intelligence will tell us they are involved in crime directly affecting Scotland."

People on the list are not allowed to see the information police hold on them. They may be given access to some basic details under data protection laws, but most files would be withheld.

Robert Brown MSP, the Liberal Democrats' justice spokesman, thinks that is wrong. He said: "This culture of secrecy flies in the face of attempts to make public services more open and transparent."

Sorting the wheat from the chaff is a long process

THERE is valuable intelligence that leads police to catch the criminals, and then there is background interference – tittle-tattle, hearsay and irrelevancies – that can take police down investigative cul-de-sacs.

Being able to separate the two is vital to the success of the Scottish Intelligence Database.

The system relies on carefully sifting through a flood of intelligence reports submitted every day by the country's 17,000 police officers.

These reports cover the whole spectrum of crime, and vary vastly in their usefulness.

The task of sorting all this out lies with teams of intelligence officers and analysts in each of the country's eight police forces, as well as the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency. They sit in unremarkable offices, wading through thousands of reports every day, grading the intelligence reports and sorting the wheat from the chaff.

"We don't want to be keeping stuff like 'Joe Smith has 10,000 in his bank account'. But we do want to hang on to 'Joe Smith has 10,000 in his bank account from drug-dealing," says Pat Shearer, chief constable of Dumfries and Galloway Police and chair of the SID project board for the ACPOS.

Equally, the intelligence officers will assess the reliability of the tip-offs.

Solid-gold intelligence that Joe Smith has stashed away 10,000 of profits from dealing crack cocaine has to be prioritised over an unreliable informant saying he's heard from Joe Smith's ex-girlfriend that he's stashed away 10,000 of profits from dealing cocaine.

So police use a "five-by-five" grading system: ranging from "A1" intelligence, which will be both highly relevant to a criminal investigation, and highly reliable; to "E5", which will be far less useful, and possibly bogus.

Mr Shearer insisted that there is no doubt that the system is allowing police to keep up with a vast amount of crime being carried out by people inside and outside Scotland, such as drug dealers from cities south of the Border who arrange for heroin and cocaine to be couriered to Glasgow or Edinburgh.

But not all will have been convicted of a crime, and many will have been subject to unsubstantiated intelligence feeds that need to be checked.

BACKGROUND

A WAR on Scotland's growing cocaine epidemic is being waged with the help of the Scottish Intelligence Database.

It emerged in the summer that seizures of the drug had increased by 50 per cent in the space of just two years. Seizures of crack cocaine trebled over the same period.

The police believe a gang of English crack suppliers has focused on infiltrating the drug market in the Grampian force area in recent years.

They are thought to have targeted the sex industry in Aberdeen by giving prostitutes their first hit for free in order to get them dependent on crack.

The prostitutes are then supplied directly and then urged to pass on the drug to their clients.

Intelligence from SID and cooperation with forces in England is said to have helped the police create a picture of a network of the individuals involved.

Chief Inspector Andy Goslin, SID project manager, said: "Good quality intelligence ensured that operations could be set up targeting specific people and premises for arrest and disruption of drug related activity.

"Over a period of about 18 months there have been a number of arrests, convictions and seizures as a result of these operations. These included charges of possession, possession with intent to supply and being concerned with the supply of drugs."

Around 7.3 kilos of crack cocaine was seized in Grampian last year.

Case 1: Scots system helped trace Danielle's drive-by killer

THE Scottish Intelligence Database played a crucial role in capturing the gang responsible for the murder of 14-year-old schoolgirl Danielle Beccan in a drive-by shooting in Nottingham in 2004.

Her plaintive last words, "I am going to die", shocked people across Britain.

The case was one of the most infamous examples of how gang culture and the use of guns were getting out of control in the UK.

Detectives believed one of the killers, Junior Andrews, had some links in the North-east of Scotland, and asked Grampian Police to run his name through the Scottish Intelligence Database.

Andrews had no fixed address, so it had proven difficult for police in England to trace his history.

However, Grampian Police came up with a number of "hits", including addresses of family members in Aberdeen.

Andrews was alleged to have fired the shots that hit the teenager as she and friends walked through St Ann's, Nottingham, on 9 October, 2004.

Partly thanks to the information on the database, the police were able to trace Andrews and arrest him in Aberdeen.

It emerged he had a long record of involvement in gangs and their associated drug, knife and gun cultures, and eventually, in October 2005, he was ordered to serve at least 32 years in prison for Danielle's murder.

For a long time, members of Midlands-based gangs have been blamed for many of the drug problems in Aberdeen and the North-east of Scotland, particularly those involving crack cocaine. The Granite city became known as "Scotland's crack capital", and that made it a perfect place to build up the database of gang and drugs-related problems in Scotland.

Case 2: DNA link led to ram-raid gang

THE capture of a gang of ramraiders who targeted cash machines across Scotland and the north-east of England has been put down to the success of the Scottish Intelligence Database.

One raid saw them use a mechanical digger to smash into a cash machine in East Lothian.

It was one of nine highly organised robberies – carried out between January 2005 and November 2006 – which saw the gang escape with almost 300,000 in cash. The gang slashed the tyres of police cars parked at stations near the cash machines. Investigating officers in Lothian and Borders and Strathclyde used the database to put together an entire profile of all the gang members using intelligence gathered from across the UK. Forensic tests carried out on an abandoned getaway car were linked to the DNA of one of the gang members.

Case 3: How bank raiders were tracked down

TWO masked raiders who terrorised bank staff with a sawn-off shotgun and an axe were locked up with the help of the database. Robert Harper, 40, and Robert Findlay, 45 were jailed for 18 years each after being convicted of raiding the Airdrie Savings Bank in Muirhead, Lanarkshire, in October, 2005.

The pair had threatened seven terrified members of staff and stole more than 6000.

But the two bank raiders were eventually caught after CCTV images of them without their masks on outside the premises and details of the incident were circulated throughout the Strathclyde Police force.

Police believe the SID system, which led to officers in another part of the force area recognising one of the raiders, helped prevent them carry out a number of other serious offences.

Case 4: Prime example of SID in action

POLICE point to a case of attempted murder in Dumfries and Galloway as a prime example of the difference the creation of the SID has made.

A major investigation was launched and a suspect quickly identified. However when officers went to his home address he had disappeared, leaving no clue to where he had gone.

Searches of both the local intelligence systems in use at the time did not reveal any further information on where he might be. The SID database had not come into use in Dumfries and Galloway at the time, about three years ago.

However, one of the officers involved in the investigation was being trained on how to use SID and decided to search for the suspect's name to see if any further information could be uncovered.

He found that a SID entry existed for the suspect, linking him to an address in a town in the north of Scotland.

Within hours the man had been arrested, charged with the attempted murder and detained.

The Dumfries and Galloway force believes that without SID the suspect could only have been found through an expensive, time-consuming search across the whole of Scotland or even the UK.