Police Scotland is being investigated by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) over its handling of Subject Access Requests, according to internal documents obtained by the Mail. The force's compliance with both SAR and freedom of information (FOI) requests has fallen sharply, alongside a marked rise in serious data breaches, prompting Scottish Conservative justice spokesman Stephen Kerr to criticise the SNP for failing to properly support the force. The findings raise concerns about transparency and public trust, as SARs and FOI laws exist to let individuals and the public access information held about them by public authorities.

Internal figures submitted to the Scottish Police Authority show Police Scotland's compliance rate for SARs and FOI requests dropped to around 47%, meaning more than half of requests were not answered on time, with the disclosure team said to be under "significant pressure". The force is also being separately monitored by the Scottish Information Commissioner. Police Scotland recorded 386 data loss incidents in 2025-26, with nine serious enough to be reported to the ICO, up from three the previous year and just one in 2023-24; examples included an officer allegedly accessing systems unlawfully, witness details wrongly given to an accused person, and a victim's address disclosed in a custody report. The documents also reference a separate vetting failure in which a staff member omitted information from their forms before being employed, recorded at a cost of £64,208.