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FP3

Discontinue certainty claims

Fingerprint Inquiry · The Fingerprint Inquiry Report · Issued 14 December 2011 · Addressed to: SPA Forensic Services

Government responseScottish Police Authority: Accepted (Dec 2011)Scottish Government: Noted (Dec 2011)

DeliveryNo statement from SPA Forensic Services found

Recommendation, verbatim from the inquiry

●Inquiry recommendation, Chapter 43; Para 38.77

Examiners should discontinue reporting conclusions on identification or exclusion with a claim to 100% certainty or on any other basis suggesting that fingerprint evidence is infallible.

Fingerprint Inquiry, The Fingerprint Inquiry Report · 14 Dec 2011 Source PDF, page 741 →

Published evidence summary

AI-generated evidence summary

The Inquiry asked examiners to stop claiming complete certainty or infallibility in fingerprint conclusions. In December 2011, the Scottish Police Services Authority stated that its forensic services division would develop an action plan to make necessary improvements before integrating into the single Scottish Police Service (Scottish Police Services Authority response, Dec 2011). It did not mention certainty claims or the infallibility of fingerprint evidence in that statement (Scottish Police Services Authority response, Dec 2011).

AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 1 Oct 2026.

About this summary
This recommendation asks for cultural or behavioural change, which is difficult to verify from published sources alone. The record above reflects policy commitments rather than measured outcomes.

Report-level response context

The Scottish Government's news release of 14 December 2011, the day the report was published, is its only published statement on the recommendations. Its one sentence about them is given for all of them together and states no position. The Scottish Police Services Authority's release of the same day accepts "all of the recommendations made of it by the Inquiry" without listing them; the site records that on the recommendations addressed to its forensic service. The Authority no longer exists, and the site files its words under the Scottish Police Authority, which took over its forensic services in 2013.

Government response

●Scottish Police Authority · Accepted · 14 Dec 2011

Words of: Scottish Police Services Authority, news release, 14 December 2011

The Scottish Police Services Authority (SPSA) accepts all the Inquiry's findings and all of the recommendations made of it by the Inquiry. SPSA Forensic Services will be developing an action plan with the aim of making the necessary improvements in time for fingerprints to integrate into the new single Scottish Police Service in 2013-14.

Response document: Scottish Police Services Authority welcomes findings of Fingerprint Inquiry

Site note: These are the words of the Scottish Police Services Authority, from its news release of 14 December 2011 (Internet Archive capture; its website closed when the Authority was dissolved). The site files them under the Scottish Police Authority, which took over its forensic services in 2013.

●Scottish Government · Noted · 14 Dec 2011

Words of: Kenny MacAskill, Justice Secretary, in a Scottish Government news release, 14 December 2011

We should all recognise that there have been significant advances in the delivery of Scotland's forensic services since the McKie case, and I am confident that the recommendations from this Inquiry will further enhance these services.

Response document: Fingerprint Inquiry

Delivery

No statement on delivery from SPA Forensic Services has been found in the sources searched. This is separate from the response above.

How this page is built

The recommendation and the government responses are verbatim from primary documents. Delivery statements and other bodies' findings are shown in their own words, each with its source. The summary is written by this site and labelled as such. The Index does not paraphrase sources or characterise intent; it records what has been published.