INNOVATION: Artificial intelligence, automation and machine learning offer significant opportunities for improving performance in policing; but in this first in a series of articles from Emerging Tech in Policing Week, Matthew Cheesman, Technology Consulting Manager for Accenture, argues that the key to their successful adoption and implementation will be ethics, transparency and governance.

ANALYSIS: Fraud is now the most common crime in England and Wales, costing the UK economy £137bn each year; in this article, Richard Hyde, Scott Corfe and Bill Anderson-Samways of the Social Market Foundation (SMF) examine the inadequacy of police resource dedicated to tackling the problem, and call on the Government to take a comprehensive ‘systems approach’ to tackling fraud, enacting reforms that can endure over decades.

OPINION: For over a decade, public safety officials have recognised that the capacity to retain current highly trained staff and recruit next generation professionals is central to public service success; the University of Southampton’s Dr Fatema Zaghloul, and Justin Partridge of the University of Leeds, explore talent management in the public safety sector and reflect on previous endeavours to attract next generation professionals.

ANALYSIS: As investigations of poor behaviour by UK politicians and police highlight a perceived decline of standards in public life, efforts are underway across the EU to ensure that the use of artificial intelligence and machine-learning technologies within security and law enforcement is compatible with upholding the seven principles of public life, as Policing Insight’s Andy Staniforth reports.

OPINION: Despite many more people dying on the roads than from terrorism or knife crime, roads policing resources have been significantly cut back over the past decade; now the Police Foundation has called for roads policing to be made a Strategic Policing Requirement, and a new Road Safety Commissioner appointed, in an effort to reverse the de-prioritisation of roads policing, as Police Foundation Director Rick Muir explains.

OPINION: Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to be a gamechanger in law enforcement, but only if there is confidence in its deployment both inside and outside of the sector; Steve Ainsworth, Executive Director of Public Safety at NEC Software Solutions UK, argues the case for more transparency around the use of AI in policing.

ANALYSIS: Despite strong community rules and safeguards, some social media platforms remain a haven for a range of illegality, including the illicit trade in wildlife; University of Cape Town Research Associate Dr Rowan Martin, University of Oxford Senior Research Fellow Dr Amy Hinsley, and Dr Ana Nuno, Research Fellow at Nova School of Business and Economics, believe that trade can only be tackled effectively if experts, big tech and regulators adopt a united approach.

INNOVATION: The latest cybersecurity research and innovation opportunities published under the Horizon Europe programme offer police forces the chance to improve operational cyber monitoring and threat detection; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at the opportunities available, and encourages UK forces to make the most of the funding available to strengthen security and detection through collaboration with EU partners.

INNOVATION: Four years ago Dubai Police launched its first Smart Police Station (SPS) driven by artificial intelligence (AI), as part of the force’s wider Strategic Plan for the use of AI: Dr Jorge Román and Khalifa Al Room of Dubai Police explain the reasoning behind the development of the SPS, how it works, and the impact it has already had on interaction between the police and the community.

ANALYSIS: The rapid advancement of new technology is creating a range of potential uses and applications in law enforcement settings, as well as mounting public and community concern around the ethical use of tech; in this article Inspector Carla Gilmore, Manager - Emergent Technologies for New Zealand Police, explains how the force is creating new policies and frameworks to ensure emerging technology is used safely and responsibly.

ANALYSIS: The latest annual reports on global and European cybercrime discuss both increasingly complex as well as opportunist attacks, and highlight the performance of individual countries in safeguarding against threats; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at who is doing well, who needs to do better, and what more they could be doing.

OPINION: The Internet of Things, that network of products and objects using digital communications to connect and exchange data with other devices and systems, is becoming increasingly common in our everyday world; but Dr Lennon Chang of Monash University believes it also represents a significant opportunity for cyber criminals to carry out a much wider range of both cyber-dependent and cyber-enabled crimes.

INNOVATION: Artificial intelligence and machine learning have the potential to revolutionise identification processes for law enforcement; but if they are to be reliable and trusted, those commissioning their use must ensure concerns around gender dimension bias have been addressed from the outset, says Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth.

ANALYSIS: The Biden administration’s recent ban on the use of Pegasus spyware in the US represents a strong international statement on human rights and democratic freedoms; but analyst Dr Teagan Westendorf of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute believes it raises serious questions for Australian policing, and the swathe of legislation giving law enforcement new powers to access individuals’ data in the name of tackling ‘exceptional’ or ‘unprecedented’ threats.

POLICING FRIENDSHIP TOUR: Policing could already benefit from the significant advances available in modern technology, according to Allan Fairley of Accenture UK – but he believes the real barriers to progress are politics and personal agendas, as he explained to Policing Insight Publisher Bernard Rix on a recent leg of the Policing Friendship Walking Tour.

OPINION: While there was a familiar ring to much of the UK Government’s recently unveiled ‘Beating Crime Plan’, continuing pressure on resources (both human financial) means delivering a new-look local policing approach is still a major challenge; Steve Ainsworth, Executive Director of NEC Software Solutions UK, believes technology can lead to more effective targeting of offences and offenders, and give young-in-service officers the vital knowledge they need to succeed.

FEATURE: With the site of a new National Cyber Force now confirmed – along with the centre’s role in “offensive cyber operations” – the UK has reinforced its position as a leading player in global cyber security; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at plans for the NCF, the country’s continuing efforts to build cyber capacity, and the opportunities for developing new uses of artificial intelligence within those disruptive technologies.

ANALYSIS: High-harm domestic abuse offenders are likely to have a criminal record and several police interactions before they are first reported for partner violence – and a small number go on to cause disproportionate harm – so could algorithms and machine learning help to target them early? This was one of the key questions considered by New South Wales Police Superintendent Andrew Hurst at last week’s rescheduled Australia and New Zealand Society of Evidence-Based Policing conference.

INNOVATION: With pressure on police call handlers back up to levels not seen for many years, Steve Little from Frazer-Nash Consultancy assesses the options facing police leaders: either keep recruiting more staff in an ‘arms race’ that they can never win, or follow other sectors and turn to AI solutions that will deliver an automated experience for the citizen.

POLICING FRIENDSHIP TOUR: Sopra Steria’s Public Safety MD Paul Bergin believes policing already has the technology to predict future crimes and identify future criminals; the bigger question is how that tech and data is used ethically, as he explained to Policing Insight Publisher Bernard Rix on a recent leg of the Policing Friendship Walking Tour.

INNOVATION: The recent European Police Chiefs Convention was the setting for the first Europol Excellence Awards in Innovation, with a project creating a new tool to target online child sex abuse and a multinational collaboration tackling global malware scooping the prizes; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at the two award winners, as well as the wider issue of the importance of innovation in policing.

INNOVATION: As delegates gather in Coventry for this week’s BAPCO public safety technology event, Simon Hall, CEO of police digital mobility platform PoliceBox, looks back at the predictions he was invited to make regarding police IT in 2006 – and the success stories, disappearing initiatives and surprise arrivals on the policing technology scene over the intervening 15 years.

INNOVATION: With global digitalisation, an increasingly complex international security landscape and the rapid advances in technology, new intelligence gathering tools and techniques are developing at pace; now a new European collaboration of 15 intelligence and security agencies has been established to focus and share research and development, as Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth reports.

INNOVATION: Advances in technology, particularly in artificial intelligence (AI), could deliver real benefits for policing – but get it wrong and the impact can be hugely damaging; ahead of next week’s NPCC Conference on Diversity, Equality and Inclusion, Sharon Moore, Public Sector Chief Technical Officer at IBM, looks at some of the initiatives already underway to ensure issues such as racial or gender bias in AI don’t become barriers to public trust and accountability.