Science, Data and Technology in Policing – a personal view

Introduction

We have significant expectation that science, data and technology will transform our personal and working lives in the weeks, months, and years ahead. New technology and data tools like artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analytics and cloud compute (with power only limited only by cost), provide policing with the opportunity to transform the way we work and bring greater precision to how we police and support communities.

Global economic and political events have had a fundamental impact on society, for example the increasing use of protest (which has a consequential impact on the cost of policing and availability of officers in local communities), the availability of investment and even the cyber landscape. The cost of borrowing and therefore resources has risen, and the public sector and policing is far from immune to this with inflationary and societal pressures. As a result, we are more focussed than ever on maximising value for money. This means delivery efficiency and an increasing reliance on technology which leads to more expenditure in this area; ideally this is focussed on innovation and new capability while we bare down on legacy spend and maximise the benefit of existing services.

The exponential growth in structured and unstructured data like video, voice and biometrics has put tremendous strain on our ability to service data rights in a timely manner (e.g. Freedom of Information (FOI) and Right of Access (ROA)). Policing is rightly held to account and committed to the principles of ethics, transparency to build trust, and legal obligations but money that is spent on FOI and ROA cannot be spent on frontline policing.

Access to technology is of course not just in the hands of law enforcement and we are seeing digital evidence playing a part in most investigations whether technology and data used to perpetrate crime or investigate it. The growth of cyber-crime, online crime, and the use of artificial intelligence whether deep fakes or the automation of cyber-attacks ranging from simple phishing to the generation of malicious code, all contribute to a complex policing and operational environment.

What are the right opportunities for us to focus on? What are the global trends? Are we best placed to deliver efficiently and effectively? How do we optimise our chances of success?

Technology Trends in Global Policing

One of the main technology trends in global policing is the use of data analytics and artificial intelligence to enhance law enforcement capabilities, such as crime prevention, detection, investigation, and response. Data analytics and artificial intelligence can help police access and analyse large volumes of data from various sources, such as CCTV cameras, social media, biometric systems, and IoT devices, and generate insights and predictions that can inform decision making and action. For example, predictive policing can use historical and real-time data to identify patterns and trends of criminal activity and allocate resources accordingly. Facial recognition can help identify suspects and victims and improve public safety. Natural language processing can help process and translate multilingual text and speech and extract relevant information from documents and audio.

Another technology trend in global policing is the use of digital platforms and tools to facilitate communication and collaboration among different stakeholders in the justice ecosystem, such as police forces, courts, prosecutors, defence lawyers, correctional institutions, and community organisations. Digital platforms and tools can help streamline workflows, share information, coordinate actions, and improve transparency and accountability. For example, cloud computing can enable secure and scalable data storage and access and reduce costs and complexity. Mobile applications can help police officers access and update information in the field and communicate with colleagues and citizens.

A third technology trend in global policing is the use of wearable and smart devices to enhance the performance, safety, and wellbeing of police officers and the public. Wearable and smart devices can help police officers collect and transmit data, monitor their health, and stress levels, and receive alerts and guidance. For example, body-worn cameras can capture video and audio evidence, and deter misconduct and violence. Smart watches can measure vital signs and environmental conditions, and alert police officers of potential risks and threats.

These technology trends in global policing offer significant opportunities and challenges for police forces in the UK and the justice system. On one hand, they can help improve efficiency, effectiveness, and equity of policing services, and enhance public safety and security. On the other hand, they can also pose ethical, legal, and social issues, such as privacy, consent, bias, accountability, and human rights. Therefore, it is essential for police forces and the justice system to adopt a responsible and ethical approach to the development and use of these technologies, and ensure that they are aligned with the values, principles, and standards of democratic policing.

Practical Science, Data and Technology Opportunity

It is critical that our approach to science and innovation is grounded in the practicalities of implementation. We must support our innovative frontline teams with sufficient input from data and technology practitioners so that we can ensure that we built actionable rather than purely ‘wow factor’ innovation.

Exploring novel solutions and innovation is desirable and we should also beware of the ‘hype’ that often accompanies the same whether driven internally or by an over-enthusiastic provider looking to sell the next best solution to our problems. We need to approach innovation with our eyes open, a proof of concept (POC) will typically be disposable and should be used to test an innovative technology or techniques. A pilot on the other hand needs to be entered into with a plan for success because there is nothing that disappoints more than a successful pilot that cannot then be deployed at scale. Some projects will move from POC to pilot, but it is important that we are clear on which is which at the outset to avoid the risk of that hype turns to disappointment!

We must not lose sight of the criticality of getting the basics right because the best technology and data is not useful unless our teams have reliable solutions that present the same to them clearly, accurately, and ethically at a time and location that is relevant. This is particularly important in policing which at its core is a local and therefore a mobile service. In policing many of us have undertaken large-scale rollouts and breathed a sigh of relief when they are finished, but it is critical that we also make provision for a regular refresh to be undertaken to keep pace with changes in data models and data collection and also to prevent mundane annoyances like depleted device battery life or slow logins because we are running more advanced software products.

Recently central and local initiatives, including one led by Bedfordshire Police, have encouraged forces to embrace automated tools that, for example, automatically redact personal data from documents prior to disclosure, demonstrating that off the shelf software can bring rapid and tangible benefit to policing. Being able to redact personal information quickly means that officers can speed up preparation of case papers for passing to the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) (a real and significant burden on our officers and staff) as well as speeding up our response to Data Rights; regaining the balance between police effectiveness and transparency & trust. Another emerging success story in policing is the use of process automation with informal centres of excellence around the country already springing up, driven by the necessity of bringing efficiency and enabling us to deal with an ever more complex world and the voluminous data that it generates. A recent initiative sponsored by the Home Office and led by Lancashire Police to bring together these use cases shows promise, and the development of actionable implementation playbooks, designs and efficient commercial arrangements should be a springboard for wider adoption.

Facial recognition has been pioneered by a handful of forces including the Met Police with very positive results both in the live environment and used retrospectively to solve crime. There is an on-gong debate about civil liberties some of which appears to be based on suspicion or misunderstanding of the checks and balances that forces have put in place to reduce bias, prevent machine driven decisions and avoid the saving of the biometrics of passers-by. In communities where live facial recognition is used, we are enabling policing to be more precise, proportionate, and successful than it would be if we relied on the human eye and a memory for the faces of multiple violent, wanted offenders. While rightly live facial recognition will continue to grab the headlines the retrospective use of this technology in the UK, one of the more CCTV hungry societies in Europe, is a significant opportunity to identify offenders that forces are encouraged to grasp.

Policing has over the last decade proposed a series of national technology solutions to improve our data, none of which have met their full potential. The vast majority start with a vision to bring data together, often from a range of sources to build national solutions that enable advanced analytics to be ethically applied to reduce crime and safeguard the public. It is hard to challenge such a vision and for that reason these projects have attracted investment but to date none have met their full potential and become the national solution they have set out to be. The 5+ year old Home Office, National Law Enforcement Data Service (NLEDS) that will replace the Police National Computer has demonstrated just how hard it is to build these systems at scale and for as long as we ignore the ‘hard yards’, cost and patience necessary to put the right data and architectural building blocks in place (with a view to turning a successful pilot into a national rollout) then forces will have to continue to pursue their own data platform and data consolidation projects.

?Our current delivery approach across policing

There are 43 Home Office funded police forces in England & Wales among around 50 law enforcement agencies across the United Kingdom. Few people would suggest that this is an optimum digital delivery model, but it is one that to some extent is forced upon us by the governance of policing itself.

Several forces have attempted to form partnerships with neighbouring forces for the delivery of shared services including technology and data but the success of these has been poor with several being subsequently dissolved. Athena, a 7-force collaboration in the East of England has had some success in managing a case management platform and Kent & Essex have probably the most long-standing shared delivery approach but national success at consolidating IT delivery at local level is patchy, unproven and looks unlikely to be scaled significantly in the medium term unless something changes. Our devolved governance invariably means forces move at different speeds but defining a target state, for example for our cloud and data architecture, with the artefacts and investmnent to enable forces to move in a convergent direction worked for the rollout of Office 365 and is an approach that I believe could work more widely.

The history of national technology delivery has proven to be particularly challenging. For example, in 2011, perhaps the largest technology programme in policing, the Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme (ESMCP/ESN) was created. In 2016 the National Audit Office said the programme “is the right direction strategically but we are concerned that the risks with getting there are under-rated”. Today, over seven years after that, the implementation timetable for the Emergency Service Network (ESN) remains unclear with the original software effectively being thrown away and the programme have returned to market. The programme has so far spent c￡2bn and the final costs remains unclear with delivery not expected before 2029.

There are causes for optimism in the central delivery arena:

·???????? the Single On-Line Home for policing sponsored by the National Police Chiefs Council and Home Office and hosted by the Met Police provides the public with a single point of contact for information and to report crime though tellingly after c.5 years of operation several forces are still not using it.

·???????? The Home Office National Law Enforcement Data Service (NLEDS) is now making noteworthy progress with a rollout started but at the expense of reducing its scope significantly to only replace the ageing Police National Computer and not the more complex Police National Database.

Improving our delivery approach

There is no doubt our structures do not support the most efficient delivery models, but we have proven that making significant changes to our digital and data delivery regime without parallel changes to police governance are unlikely to succeed. So, can we change how we deliver?

Policing is of course undertaken all over the world (and in around 50 organisations in the UK) and many of the problems we see are replicated in other industries so there are few genuinely new or unique problems. We therefore can procure Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) solutions that are not necessarily developed in policing environments. The successful implementation of Office 365 across policing is an example of taking a commercial solution, configuring rather than be-spoking, producing a design and commercial model, and helping forces to implement the same model locally.

There are of course some genuinely specialist solutions and for these we are reliant on a small police technology market. For example, there are just two policing Records Management System providers and progress has been painfully slow in stimulating a wider market despite early work in Cumbria where they are engaging a new provider to the police market. Others have considered the integration of a series of COTS products but that is challenging in such a complex criminal justice system.

Providing tried and tested COTS solutions to forces can work in a distributed model but only if forces are able to change their working practices to suit. So, as well as the technology delivery model, a business change and a data delivery model are required to accompany it. This has been demonstrated in the mentioned, Single On-Line Home for policing where the forces effectively sign up to new business processes along with the new technology.

How can we improve?

1.?????? A portfolio view

The portfolio of science, data and technology solutions across policing, the Home Office, Police Digital Service and beyond is huge and every penny spent in this area is not spent on frontline officers and staff. For example, while ESN is the largest and most costly project we also have substantial work underway to transfer systems away from the Home Office to the Police Digital Service under the Delivery Landscape Review Programme. While some benefits are identified we have a lot to do to build capacity and this risks distracting from the need to support our officers and staff to improve our service to the public. The wider portfolio could be critically reviewed from the perspective of delivery success, value for money, public and frontline benefits.

2.?????? Focussed, consistent innovation

On one level innovation in policing could be doing simple things well. However, we must also keep pace with societal and wider transformation. We need to focus on a concise list of key innovation opportunities, not be distracted by hype, and ensure that we have scalable delivery models that reach all forces not just the enthusiastic ones. A widely adopted, centrally designed, locally implemented approach provides a balance between leveraging specialists and accounting for local needs and priorities.

3.?????? The right input from data and technology specialists

Policing does not have a central, force owned, Data and Technology design team who are able to provide advice on the right approach to data and technology delivery and critically how we can scale and implement the same across a wide range of forces. The National Data & Analytics Board and the National Police Technology Council are volunteers with no full-time resources or investment. A stronger guiding ‘mind’ located within policing would improve our chances of delivery success at scale.

Darren Scates - May 2024

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