Photographs of police officers and police buildings

As is the case with many corporate bodies, the records of police forces often include photographs, most commonly commemorating the opening of a building or some other project, or in the form of group photographs of constabularies (if small enough), or divisions. There may also be portraits taken of the Chief Constable for use in annual reports and similar publications. To these can be added photographs relating to individual policemen and policewomen collected by force historians and those donated to police museums and local authority archives. Judging by the type of many photographs donated this way, many individuals who joined a police force had a portrait photograph taken by a commercial photographer. The survival of these is obviously haphazard. Personnel files since the 1960s have tended to include photographs of individual police officers.  Access to personnel files including photographs will be subject to the Data Protection Act 2018 and may also require permission from Police Scotland.