ICT

FEATURE: A recent report by the Public Accounts Committee is calling for more transparency over what it described as the “hopelessly outdated” funding formula for police in England and Wales which is restricting forces’ ability to recruit the right staff and roll out new technology, and warns that the Home Office needs better understanding of how policy changes impact on policing resources, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: In just nine months, South Wales Police has dismantled 63 county lines - compared with only three identified four years ago - while freeing 3,276 analyst hours. How? Through the Chorus Intelligence Suite (CIS). Frontline officers now progress investigations in real-time, analysts focus on critical analysis, and previously siloed data surfaces unknown evidence. The outcome: faster and smarter operations that disrupt criminal networks, protect vulnerable people, and deliver measurable results.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children says GenAI-related child exploitation increased 6,345% in the US from 2024 to 2025. One alarming trend is the use of GenAI to general deepfake child sexual abuse materials. SS8 helps detect and investigate these images by combining EXIF metadata analysis, third party detection solutions like wasitAI, lawful intelligence data, and more, but standardized legal definitions and technological guardrails are necessary as well.

FEATURE: A new report into the impact of ‘Gen Z’ and ‘Gen Alpha’ on the criminal landscape is warning that, with the use of technology by digital natives of coming generations reshaping crime itself, the gap between younger people’s experience the world and how authorities try to police it will only widen, meaning law enforcement will need to evolve just as fast, or “risk irrelevance”, reports Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

OPINION: With police forces facing crime challenges at national and international levels, the 43-force structure across England and Wales can present a barrier to speedy and effective interventions; NTT DATA UK&I Executive Head of Public Safety and Justice Ian Rimington, Senior Director Brian Cliff, and Director Keith Ward, argue that closer digital collaboration between neighbouring forces would preserve local independence while giving officers the speed, clarity and unity of purpose to face crime that moves without borders.

INTERVIEW: Since Krissy Barrett’s appointment last month as Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police (AFP), she has been setting out some of the challenges facing the organisation in the current policing landscape; she recently spoke to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons about her aims for leading the force to meet the evolving threats, the AFP’s unique technical and collaborative capabilities, and her ambition to ensure the AFP is “the best police agency in the world to work in”.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already starting to transform policing and other emergency services. Jamie Wilson of NiCE explains how the true benefits of AI lie in extracting valuable insights from data. A notable example of this is in emergency communications centres.

FEATURE: The latest review from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) warns that the “opaque” nature of computer technology is leaving both state and organisational systems vulnerable to cyber-attack; the review also set out the steps that organisations can take to increase system transparency and reduce risks, as well as highlighting the range of initiatives the NCSC is currently delivering to improve resilience and target cybercriminals, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: Police forces globally face continuing modernisation challenges – with technology a key element in driving change – but the employee experience is often neglected in the transformation process; Phillip Bland, Global Government Advisor at experience management specialists Qualtrics, sets out how forces can ensure the frontline employee voice is heard, measured and acted upon in the police modernisation process.

INTERVIEW: After leading Merseyside Police for just over four years, Serena Kennedy recently stepped down from her role as the Chief Constable of the fifth largest force in England and Wales; speaking with Policing Insight’s James Sweetland shortly before her departure, she reflected on the changing nature of police leadership, debates about national reform, and shared her perspective on what the planned new National Centre of Policing (NCoP) should look like.

FEATURE: An Inspectorate report into the UK National Crime Agency’s National Data Exploitation Capability (NDEC) is warning that the Agency risks missing vital intelligence due in part to a mounting “technical debt” that means it spends much of its annual IT budget updating hundreds of legacy systems rather than investing in long-term technology solutions, with NDEC staff using outdated and obsolete IT when trying to work on large volumes of data, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: With the huge potential of data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) beginning to be leveraged in policing, former long-serving police officer John Kilburn, now with data and AI specialists SAS, spoke to Policing Insight about some of the potential benefits of the new technology for both the policing and the public, the importance of transparent and explainable applications of AI, and how incremental approaches to developing systems within forces can lead to long-term gains.

INTERVIEW: Greater Manchester Police’s Chief Superintendent Phil Davies leads for the force on data strategy, as well as on data foundations for the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s Data and Analytics Board; he spoke to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons about the benefits of police borrowing the “digital twin” concept widely used in industry, the need for efficient data quality and management, and how realisation around the importance of data is finally hitting home in policing.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: The British Retail Consortium’s (BRC’s) Annual Crime Survey, published earlier in the year, makes for grim reading. Retailers report a sharp increase in theft, and acts of violence and abuse are up a staggering 340 percent (since 2020) as well. These trends are occurring in spite of huge retail security investments, new policing initiatives, and legislative changes put in place by the UK government to bolster the prosecution of retail crime.

OPINION: The recent joint inspection report published by HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate and HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services highlighted key challenges for the criminal justice system (CJS) in England and Wales; Dee Cowburn, communications specialist and police media advisor, argues that alongside a national strategy, clearer accountability and more effective ICT, improved communications are crucial in strengthening the CJS.

ANALYSIS: A new report into the performance of An Garda Síochána has highlighted the roll out of a new operating model as the “most significant change” to the structure of the force in its history, and has praised achievements in roads policing, tackling drugs and community engagement; but the report warns that persistent recruitment and retention difficulties, a lack of resources and inadequate IT remain key challenges to the performance of An Garda Síochána, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Network analysis can identify criminal leaders with 92% accuracy—a precision that manual investigation rarely achieves. But even with this mathematical precision, the volume of insights generated from criminal networks can overwhelm human analysts, leaving critical intelligence buried in complex data relationships.

INNOVATION: To address key areas of crime and vulnerability, UK constabularies can use visual analysis software to pull together data from myriad sources for the prevention of harm, the detection of crime, and the identification of risk; Seth Cooke, a former Avon and Somerset Police intelligence analyst and now i2 Group technical and tradecraft specialist, explains how this technology powerfully supports approaches to knife crime, antisocial behaviour, and violence against women and girls.

INNOVATION: An updated National Policing Digital Strategy for forces across the UK has called for greater government investment in new policing technology, a commitment from forces to modernise “local ways of working” and follow the blueprints set out nationally, and a push for “capturing, cleaning, managing, using, and sharing data at all levels” if the service is to grasp the “once-in-a generation opportunity to deliver significant, tangible change” offered by technology advances, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

INNOVATION: A new digital ‘data-rich’ form introduced by the Metropolitan Police Service to improve the effectiveness of processing people detained under s136 of the Mental Health Act is also helping to reduce detentions, free up officer time, and gather valuable information about the barriers and pinchpoints relating to finding suitable health-based places of safety for those in mental health crisis, as Policing Insight’s Tina Orr Munro reports.

INNOVATION: University of Sheffield Senior Law Lecturer Dr Joe Purshouse, and University of Southampton Law Lecturer Dr Joe Atkinson, set out the findings from a series of workshops and events hosted by the UK’s Predictive Policing Network, including the current implantation of predictive policing technology, the regulation governing its use, and the potential opportunities and challenges of future adoption of predictive policing tools – particularly in relation to the use of artificial intelligence.

OPINION: The recent publication of the UK’s new National Policing Digital Strategy 2025-2030 is a welcome development, argues Sharad Rathi, Global Operations Director of HCLTech, but policing will need more than the promise of new institutions if it is to deliver on the strategy’s ambitions – particularly in the current financial climate.

INTERVIEW: Policing Insight’s Ian Weinfass spoke to Metropolitan Police Service Director of Data Aimee Smith and Deputy Director of Data Samantha Laskey about how they overcame a traditional culture and delays to develop policing’s first open data strategy.

INTERVIEW: Humberside Police has become a story of turnaround success, from being the first UK force to be rated ‘inadequate’ to becoming graded in most areas as ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’, and technology has played key part in the transformation; Police Insight’s James Sweetland spoke to the force’s Chief Digital and Innovation Officer Scot Dunn about the role artificial intelligence has played in that journey, the importance of focusing new tech on supporting victims, and the difference a national policing centre could make.