HUNDREDS of Scots are being secretly placed on a police database - for telling offensive jokes online.

Police Scotland has logged more than 3,300 “hate incidents”, such as sharing offensive jokes on social media, even though they involve no criminality.

1 Logged jokes could be handed to potential employers Credit: Getty - Contributor

But comedians and campaigners say it's over-policing the public and a danger to freedom of speech.

Officers currently go by official guidelines which state jokes appearing to be motivated by hostility towards race, religion or a person being transgender are filed “irrespective of whether there is any evidence to identify the hate element”.

And any information logged could appear on disclosure checks and handed to employers if police deem it relevant to a job they are applying for.

The Times reports a freedom of information request showed that 858 of these non-crime incidents were uploaded to Scottish police systems last year - the equivalent of more than two a day.

In England and Wales, almost 120,000 cases were logged by 34 police forces over the same period.

Comedian and former radio presenter Fred MacAulay blasted the practice, branding it "a waste of police time".

He said: “Police Scotland will have a lot a material for their office Christmas party if they’ve got 3,300 jokes stored that are not criminal.

"There have been things said in the comedy store dressing room between two or three comedians that somebody would take offence at when we’re discussing material and how far the boundaries can be pushed.

“If a normal person says an offensive joke, in the pub or something like that, it’s a waste of police time to record that.”

Meanwhile, Index on Censorship editor-in-chief Rachael Jolley said people were potentially having their basic human rights taken away.

She said: “Speech that breaks no law is being investigated in a way that stifles people’s freedom to express themselves and has the potential to close down debate because of fear of what may end up on their record.

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"Human rights include our right to have opinions, and sometimes those may be upsetting to others, but in a free and open and healthy society we must be able to express opinions that others disagree with.”

Hate crime operational guidance also permits officers to “identify a hate incident, even when the victim or others do not”.

Last week a judge ruled that the College of Policing’s official guidelines had been unlawfully used to interfere with a man’s freedom of speech.

Former cop Harry Miller won his legal fight against Humberside police, in East Riding of Yorkshire, after being investigated for allegedly “transphobic” tweets.

He said that an officer turned up at his workplace and said: “I’m here to check your thinking.”

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The guidelines admit that cases have been used “as evidence to accuse the police of becoming ‘the thought police’, trying to control what citizens think or believe” and reject that but urge officers “not to overreact”.

Police Scotland chief inspector Coleen Wylie said: “Officers will consider the circumstances around all hate reports, and while not every report will amount to criminality, this enables officers to consider and take preventative [or] protective measures to address any emerging concerns.”

A Police Scotland spokesman added: “An offensive joke may be reported by someone, but not amount to any criminality, so we would log this as a hate incident.”

The force added that an individual’s “repeated behaviour” would also be monitored and reviewed to “check if there is any criminality”.

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