Latest news with #InspectorateofConstabularyinScotland
Daily Record
25-04-2025
- Health
- Daily Record
East Ayrshire planning partnership inspection receives positive report
An inspection of services in the East Ayrshire planning partnership has found strengths in ensuring that children and young people at risk of harm are safe. However, some areas for improvement were also identified. The joint inspection included teams from the Care Inspectorate, Healthcare Improvement Scotland, His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland and Education Scotland. Teams also included young inspection volunteers, who are young people with direct experience of care services. They receive training and support and contribute to joint inspections using their knowledge and experience to help evaluate the quality and impact of partners' work. The inspection took place between September 16, 2024 and March 6, 2025. The inspectors met with and observed six babies and listened to the views and experiences of 84 children and young people as well as 27 parents and carers. They also met with six elected officials and 3631 staff, including senior leaders and those who worked directly with children, young people and families. Inspectors found that staff were confident in their abilities to recognise and report signs of child abuse, neglect and exploitation. Children were safer because of effective recognition and initial response to risk. The effective implementation of the Scottish Child Interview Model ensured that children were able to give quality evidence, whilst being protected from further trauma. Multi-agency assessments, planning and reviews were undertaken for children and young people at risk of harm. The majority of assessments were of good quality, but the quality of plans to support children and their families were more variable. Staff across agencies were deemed to have worked well together to ensure that appropriate support was provided to keep children and young people safe and to help them recover from their experiences. Children and young people were also said to be respected and supported to give their views. Staff listened to children and young people and understood what was important to them. However, the partnership was taking steps to improve the way it captured data to better evidence outcomes. Inspectors also noted that it was difficult for the partnership to know the value of some services and how to target resources most effectively. Jackie Irvine, Chief Executive of the Care Inspectorate, said: 'The inspection found a number of important strengths, and that the work of partners was making a positive difference to the lives of children and young people at risk of harm. 'The Care inspectorate and its scrutiny partners are confident that the partnership in East Ayrshire have the capacity to make changes to service delivery in the areas that require improvement. 'We have requested a joint action plan that clearly details how they will make improvements in the key areas identified. We will continue to offer support for improvement and we will monitor progress.' Don't miss the latest Ayrshire headlines – sign up to our free daily newsletter
BBC News
25-03-2025
- BBC News
Custody photos too poor for facial recognition technology
Photos taken of suspects arrested in Scotland are often too low quality to be used by facial recognition technology, a report has confirmed. The Scottish Biometrics Commissioner and His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) raised concerns about the quality of custody images being added to national databases. Commissioner Dr Brian Plastow said a "sizeable proportion" of those taken between 2019 and 2024 are of such low quality they are unsuitable for software used across the UK to link suspects to other crimes. Police Scotland said they were already aware of this issue and would consider recommendations in the report. Police forces across the UK upload images of everyone they arrest to the Police National Database (PND), which allows officers to detect potential matches with photographs of suspects captured and uploaded from sources including video doorbells and intelligence sharing system can lead to a person arrested for one crime being linked to numerous unsolved crimes. While custody photographs remain mostly low-quality, Police Scotland will be unable to take part in new facial matching services, including the controversial live facial recognition have previously warned that using live facial recognition on members of the public would be a "radical departure from Police Scotland's fundamental principle of policing by consent."But the report highlighted the problem with the current use of retrospective image search technology (RIST) when the custody images were not adequate. Figures from Police Scotland revealed that a potential match was found in just 2% of RIST it also gave examples of successes in Scotland including the sexual assault of a tourist who was then sent offensive messages and images from the matched the photo from his messaging app to a custody photo taken more than 20 years recognition technology can also be used to compare images on the the Child Abuse Image Database (CAID) to identify victims and perpetrators of online child sexual abuse. Suspects 'not being detected' Dr Plastow said: "While carrying out this assurance review we were informed about the insufficient quality and resolution of Scottish images on the Police Scotland Criminal History System, which affects a portion of custody images captures between 2019-2024."This means a sizeable portion of custody images are not searchable under PND facial search functionality."This gap could mean that people who have had their custody image previously taken, are not being detected on future probe images uploaded by Police Scotland, which could lead to crimes not being detected."The report stated that the force said a "software issue" was causing the custody images to be captured at a lower than recommended minimum images were then being additionally compressed using a technique that left them unsuitable for use with the PND. Dr Plastow added: "Extreme caution must be exercised with any retrospective ICT fix to uncompress these images."If they cannot be fully restored to their original format, the reliability of the data could be significantly compromised."Dr Plastow said there needed to be "transparency, robust governance and independent oversight" when using biometrics. Assistant Chief Constable Steve Johnson said Police Scotland would consider the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner's recommendations in full."Our Biometrics Oversight Board is already aware of this issue and is overseeing work to improve the quality of images taken in custody and the collaboration with Home Office Strategic Facial Matcher Project, which mirrors the recommendations," he said.
