Dr. Shawna Coxon:

There are protections associated with confidential informants, but each one is looked at as well. It is not the case that a carte blanche is given and the informant is told, "Here you go, you've given confidential information." Certainly that is why I gave out the information about the confidential hotline. There are different ways in which people can give information anonymously. The Deputy is talking about a carded informant but it can happen at a lower level - somebody giving private information in a confidential way to the hotline, for example. Confidential informants are part of our intelligence picture. I will not get into the tactics in great detail here but confidential informants form part of it, yes.