SCOTTISH police have spent £370,000 on forty-one “cyber kiosks” which can override mobile phone passwords to access private data such as text messages, encrypted conversations, photos, web browsing history, contacts and call records in a matter of seconds.

The Sunday Herald revealed last week that a pilot of the technology, in Edinburgh and Stirling, saw specially-trained officers access 375 phones and 262 sim cards during investigations of what Police Scotland called “low-level crime”.

In a significant rollout of the initiative, kiosks will now be distributed to officers “across the country” so that they can see what is held on seized phones, Detective Chief Inspector Brian Stuart said.

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The senior officer also said they would only extract “relevant information” and “no data will be retained on the kiosk”, but politicians and privacy campaigners have raised concerns about whether information will be held elsewhere.

Israeli company Cellebrite, which manufactures the kiosks, boasts on its website that they can “access a wide range of evidence sources, including encrypted or locked mobile devices, public and private social media and other cloud data”.

Details of the £370,000 police contract for the kiosks appeared on the Public Contracts Scotland website on Thursday. The Scottish Police Authority, which procured the devices for Police Scotland, also rubber stamped a contract for "Evidence Management System Support and Maintenance’ worth £431,000, and a contract for "eDiscovery and Analytics Software" worth £286,000. Both contracts were awarded on Friday, the day after the kiosks were signed off.

Solicitor Millie Wood, of campaign group Privacy International, said: “Given that the police in Scotland have spent more than £1m this week, it’s clear they’re steamrollering ahead, even though there is little in the way of detail and no consultation. The big question is whether this is lawful?”

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Former police officer John Finnie, who is now an MSP and the justice spokesman for the Scottish Greens, intends to question the head of the Scottish Police Authority about the contracts.

He said: “It is concerning that Police Scotland has apparently invested substantial funds in devices designed to collect mass personal data with seemingly little public discussion on the issue. Accessing personal data when there are reasonable grounds to believe it can help tackle crime is one thing, but mass collection would be quite another.

“It’s crucial that practices comply with data protection laws, an area Police Scotland has not always had a strong track record in. Appropriate checks and balances must be put in place if this practice is to become the norm.

“Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority need to learn from the public backlash to issues such as the deployment of armed officer and so-called 'consensual stop and search' that policing is best done with, rather than to, our communities.”

He added: “I have asked for a meeting with the chair of the SPA to discuss this matter.”

The Scottish Liberal Democrat justice spokesman, Liam McArthur MSP, has also raised concerns about the rollout.

He said: “After the Sunday Herald revelations last week that training of officers in this new technology was proceeding apace, it appears that this has now gone beyond a trial. It is time we knew what guidance, guarantees and protections against misuse exist.

“There have been times before when the law has struggled to keep pace with the speed of technological advances. Under such circumstances, people are quite right to question what oversight there is, and should be, of this process.”

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DCI Stuart said the use of kiosks is “part of Police Scotland’s commitment to its 2026 programme of work”, which was announced in December.

He said: “The programme has included a significant uplift in our digital forensics capability to support local and specialist policing across Scotland. Part of this is the introduction of 41 cyber kiosks which Police Scotland has secured from the provider Cellebrite.

“The kiosks will be placed across the country to allow trained officers to examine devices, including mobile phones, seized under the execution of a warrant or other statutory powers. Officers will now have the ability to interrogate the device and view data from within set parameters, such as a specific timeframe.

“This allows an early decision to be made about the relevance of any device seized and delivers a more efficient process for frontline officers, the public and the criminal justice system.

“Only relevant information will be extracted and there will be no data retained on the kiosk.”