Seizure and cyber kiosks in Scotland

Police Scotland operates “cyber kiosks” — self-service triage devices at police stations used to examine a phone quickly, without sending every device away to a digital forensics lab. Police Scotland says it will “only examine a digital device where there is a legal basis and where it is necessary, justified and proportionate to the incident or crime under investigation,” and that “all information is securely deleted from the cyber kiosk at the end of each examination.”

Scotland is a separate legal system from England and Wales. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 extends to England and Wales only — the search-and-seizure framework used south of the border is not what governs a phone examined here. The powers that actually apply in Scotland are the ones set out below.

If you are in police custody in Scotland but have not yet been officially accused of the offence, a constable may put questions to you about it — but you are under no obligation to answer, beyond giving your name. That is a general rule about interview questions, not about your phone specifically; the compelled-access powers below are separate and narrower, and apply whether or not you have been accused of anything.

This page is about what happens to a seized phone. For the fuller picture of what you must and do not have to answer in a Scottish police interview, see rights and limits’ guide to what you must answer in Scotland.

Two UK-wide regimes can require you to hand over a password or unlock a device, and both apply in Scotland exactly as they do in England and Wales.

Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, an officer with the appropriate permission can serve you with a formal written notice requiring you to disclose an encryption key or password. Once served, you must comply with it — knowingly failing to make the disclosure the notice requires is itself a criminal offence.

At a Scottish port or airport, Schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act 2000 is separate, and wider. If you are questioned under it, you must give the examining officer any information in your possession that they request — a duty that can include the password to your phone — and you must provide access to the device itself, including unlocking it with a passcode, thumbprint or other access control, so a search can be carried out. Wilfully failing to comply with any of these Schedule 7 duties is itself a criminal offence, carrying up to three months’ imprisonment on summary conviction. This power is covered in full at ports and Schedule 7, and Scotland’s wider encounter rights are covered at rights and limits’ guide to what you must answer in Scotland.

Separately, under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, police across the UK — Scotland included — can extract information from a phone that has been voluntarily handed over, but only with your agreement. Before relying on that power, an officer must first give you written notice that you may refuse to provide the device or agree to the extraction.

Declining that agreement does not put the phone itself out of reach. If you have been arrested and charged, Scots common law — expressly preserved by the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 — still lets a constable seize any item in your possession, phone included, regardless of whether you agreed to any extraction from it.