Police officers and staff have been disciplined for abusing access to secret information about criminals in Tayside and Fife.
A Fife sergeant and a detective were among those accused of misusing access to classified computer systems.
There were 22 internal investigations at Tayside Police into data handling over the course of last year and 2009, with allegations ranging from unauthorised access and disclosure through to hard copies of documents being lost.
Most incidents resulted in formal warnings but one officer was fined at a misconduct hearing in 2009 for carrying out “unauthorised computer checks” and a civilian staff member was sacked during the same year for accessing information.
Sergeant Dave Hamilton, of Tayside Police Federation, said not every case recorded is a sign of an officer deliberately accessing data for nefarious reasons.
“There are two very distinct things: one is disclosure and the other is unauthorised access.
“Disclosure is an absolute no-no and just not acceptable. Unauthorised access is not good either but it is easier to do unintentionally when you are given so many systems to look at, sometimes mistakes are made.”
A constable in Fife ended up before the courts on corruption charges in 2009, receiving a fine of £400 for conducting information checks on behalf of criminals.
Two complaints have been made against officers in Fife this year, one of whom was warned about their behaviour.
In the other it was claimed an officer passed confidential information to a third party, but this did not result in any disciplinary procedures.
Disgraced former police constable Karen Howie previously a model officer who received two chief constable commendations was jailed for 27 months in April for leaking information about a counterfeit cash inquiry.
Howie (35) feared she had been pictured taking drugs by Neil Hand and used her access to feed him information about a third party.