Technology/equipment/services

OPINION: A recent decision by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to allow retailers to use live facial recognition (LFR) to tackle shoplifters has come under criticism amid claims the authority was influenced by the Home Office and a private supplier; Dr Asress Gikay, Senior Lecturer in AI, Disruptive Innovation, and Law at Brunel University, believes the ICO’s decision is erroneous and lacks transparency, and that private entities should carry out the same equality impact assessments as law enforcement to ensure the responsible use of LFR.

INNOVATION: Police Futures, a new publication from the UK’s Police Chief Scientific Adviser, moves beyond science fiction to consider how technology will shape policing over the coming decades; in the last of a three-part series exploring the report, Policing Insight’s James Sweetland looks at the findings around more advanced technologies – specifically, how neural interfaces might change how policing works in the future.

OPINION: Metropolitan Police Chief Digital, Data and Technology Officer Darren Scates recently completed his two-year tenure as Chair of the UK’s National Police Technology Council; in this article he looks back at the significant and rapid changes during that period, and looks ahead at the opportunities for innovation facing policing, both in the short and longer term.

ANALYSIS: Various sectors of criminal justice systems around the world are increasing their use of artificial intelligence (AI), but AI has played a key part in offender assessment decisions in the UK, US, Australia, Canada and other countries for more than 20 years, with little or no transparency or independent inspection of the algorithms involved, as University of Surrey Professor Melissa Hamilton and Professor Pamela Ugwudike of the University of Southampton explain.

INNOVATION: Police Futures, a new publication from the UK’s Police Chief Scientific Adviser, moves beyond science fiction to consider how technology will shape policing over the coming decades; in the second in a three-part series exploring the report, Policing Insight’s James Sweetland digs deeper into ‘sensing technology’, highlighted as one of the key developments for law enforcement of the future.

INNOVATION: In a new three-part series exploring how technology will shape policing over the coming decades, Policing Insight’s James Sweetland reports on Police Futures, a new publication from the UK’s Police Chief Scientific Adviser, which tries to move beyond science fiction and look towards what policing might really become.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Oliver Ledgard, Government and Public Safety Strategy Director, EMEA at Zebra Technologies shares his thoughts on some of the trends shaping critical comms today as well as discussing his predictions for the public safety sector in the coming years.

INNOVATION: Effective communications systems are crucial in ensuring timely and reliable service delivery for the police and others in the public sector; Richard Evans, Chief Technology Officer at Cinos, believes modern unified communications solutions such as cloud-based voice platforms can offer secure and efficient communications across multiple devices, as well as enhancing agency collaboration and co-ordination, improving contact with the public, and strengthening resilience.

INNOVATION: While technology advances have driven efficiencies in many areas of policing, frontline officers often still find themselves manually inputting licence plates, driving licence numbers, and a range of other identification checks; Oliver Ledgard of Zebra Technologies believes the public safety sector is missing an opportunity to further increase efficiency and connectivity through the use of modern optical character recognition (OCR) technology.

FEATURE: As the expansion of the metaverse and the rapid development of AI create the potential for significant increases in the grooming and online sexual abuse of children, Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant is leading efforts to force tech giants and social media platforms to take much more effective measures to prevent the online sexual exploitation of youngsters, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: The public contact report that arose from Cityforum’s round table on the subject earlier this year highlighted the importance of collaboration between policing and private industry on introducing of new technology into the sector; Martin Taylor of cloud communications specialists Content Guru believes such partnerships are crucial if policing is to maximise the benefits of tech advances in an area that’s a top priority for the public.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Frontline officers can feel overwhelmed by a rising tide of new multimedia evidence sources, plus ever more local and national policies. Ian Williams explains how new policies and legislation can be quickly incorporated into Pronto workflows – helping officers progress investigations to the highest standards from reporting through to prosecution with Motorola Solutions’ digital policing platform.

OPINION: This year’s NPCC National Intelligence Conference focused on the themes of prevention and early intervention; Matt Horne, Head of Policing & Government for Clue Software and former Deputy Director of Investigations at the National Crime Agency, who was among those attending the event, explores the key issues that arose from the Conference, and shares his own experiences and insight into the current intelligence challenges and opportunities.

FEATURE: With facial recognition increasingly prominent in the news agenda in recent months, a novel application of this technology has recently been announced by Nottinghamshire Police; the force’s new remote breathalyser – which integrates facial recognition technology – is the first recorded use of this tool anywhere outside of the US, as Policing Insight’s James Sweetland reports.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Digitally transform your police department, optimise investigation productivity, prevent missing evidence and close more cases faster.

OPINION: Although artificial intelligence (AI) tools have been used across society for several years, their increasing adoption by criminals poses new threats and challenges; Lancaster University Professor of Cyber Security Daniel Prince outlines four criminal uses of AI that could exploit victims, and how healthy scepticism can help to protect society from harm.

INNOVATION: Putting a smartphone into the hands of every police employee is no simple task, especially when old systems need to be adapted to new devices; but an ongoing programme from South Australia Police seeks to do exactly that – providing 6,000 phones at a cost of $35 million, with the potential to save 30 minutes for every officer per shift, as Policing Insight’s James Sweetland reports.

FEATURE: Automated analytics are increasingly viewed as an essential tool for keeping the public safe from serious harm, but they also create serious risks; a new report from The Alan Turing Institute presents a framework to help policing – and the security services – deploy analytics in a way that protects both privacy and public safety, as Policing Insight’s James Sweetland reports.

OPINION: With society recognising that artificial intelligence is likely to revolutionise the way we live our lives, there is also a growing consensus over the need for regulation; but Dr Asress Gikay, Senior Lecturer in AI at Brunel University, believes the UK’s pro-innovation attitude to regulation will be much more beneficial for business, the public and law enforcement than Europe’s approach based on potential problems.

ANALYSIS: The pace of artificial intelligence (AI) development has prompted calls from some quarters for a pause in the sector’s expansion efforts; members of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) technology sub-committee on AI – An Garda Síochána Deputy Commissioner Shawna Coxon, Tony Porter (Chief Privacy Officer, Corsight Ai), Netherlands Police AI expert Oscar Wijsman, US lawyer Don Zoufal, and IACP Communications and Technology Committee Chair Craig Allen – believe such calls reaffirm the need for law enforcement to take stock of the challenges presented and opportunities offered by the growth in AI.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: With policing facing significant challenges around growing volume and complexity of demand, effective collaboration between forces and with other agencies is moving higher up the agenda for delivering an effective service to the public; Hexagon Director Nick Chorley spoke to Policing Insight about the opportunities for successful collaboration, the barriers to implementation, and the drivers for change.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: In this article, Oliver Ledgard, EMEA Government Vertical Lead, Zebra Technologies, discusses the ways that the right technology can help reduce pressures, deliver capacity, provide value for money, and push up productivity within the UK’s police services.

FEATURE: With police tactical response units using the latest hi-tech equipment that often shares striking similarities with military kit, new Canadian research has highlighted the impact that such an appearance and approach can have on public trust in the police, as University of Waterloo PhD Candidate Tandeep Sidhu explains.

INTERVIEW: In the latest in a series of interviews with leading figures involved in the research and investigation of organised crime, Policing Insight’s Chris Allen spoke to former police officer Damian Barrow, now Programme Delivery Manager at data aggregation and automation specialists Synalogik, about the 4Ps approach, the prospect of AI revolutionising organised crime, and the need for greater accessibility to a wider range of datasets.