The Scottish Biometrics Commissioner has written to Police Scotland addressing his data security concerns with the force’s use of a cloud-based digital evidence sharing system.
The current post holder, Brian Plastow, who has praised age-defining technology on having a transformational impact on law enforcement, gave Police Scotland a further warning after repeated dismissals to review the use of cloud migrating data systems to share information with the U.S.
Service provider Axon began a pilot to introduce cloud migration capabilities within the force despite the police watchdog’s advice against contracting host software company Azure, computerweekly.com reports.
The most damning judgement of all is that police biometric data held in Azure can be leveraged by the U.S. government under the Cloud Act.
On 5 October, Plastow responded to the force’ reaction which attempted to deviate around the main issue of uploading sensitive biometric data to a U.S. operated system, which is therefore applicable under the The Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act 2018 to disclose data with the U.S. government.
