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By Peter Warren, 29 March 2001 17:40

NEWS According to the Scottish Campaign for Freedom of Information (SCFI), the system - known as the Scottish Intelligence Database - could fall outside new privacy legislation designed to make government agencies more transparent to the public. As a result, the SCFI is due to raise the issue with the Scottish Executive on Friday. The £8m database is an attempt to solve the decade-old problem of streamlining the exchange of police data between forces. It's designed to allow officers in Scotland's eight forces to input criminal data locally and search for nationwide patterns. It is also due to be linked to the National Crime Squad headquarters in London. While risking being dubbed as the first public appearance of Big Brother technology, the system does offer police the opportunity to understand crime in a way not previously possible. The initiative is aimed at answering prolonged criticisms from government audit bodies, which have pointed out that the activities of criminals do not stop at county boundaries. This weakness in police operations is actively exploited by increasingly mobile criminals, who move from one force area to another and across national boundaries in attempts to mask their activities. The Scottish system will share information between the participating forces. Criminal intelligence on offenders, including working methods, fingerprints, known associates, aliases and the vehicles used will all be available. By searching on an offender's profile, it will be possible to link crimes carried out in one force area to patterns being investigated by other constabularies. But SCFI spokesman David Goldberg is determined that individuals must be able to challenge data files put together in this way. "The allegedly good thing about the new Freedom of Information Act is that it covers the police. However, the act can only be used to demand information from the bodies listed in the act. If this new system is not covered by one of the bodies listed in the legislation then it will fall between the cracks." Goldberg is also concerned about one of the system's potential strengths - its ability to garner information from a broad range of government agencies. In the future, the system could take data on young offenders from bodies as diverse as education, health and social services. No decision has yet been taken on where the database will be located. A police spokesman confirmed the Scottish Criminal Records Office in Glasgow was one option, but refused to give details on any other sites.