UK Home Office explores policing with AI

The UK police is considering implementing more AI tools, including video search, AI assistants and predictive policing.

​UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has announced a white paper on the expanded use of AI and technology by police, which is due to be released this week. At the same time, police chiefs are evaluating around 100 projects related to the use of AI against crime, according to the CEO of the College of Policing, Sir Andy Marsh.

“This year, we [the College of Policing] have got across 1,400 innovative practices, and somewhere in the region of 100 of them are AI-related,” he says. “And our job is to test the ones that work properly, test them with rigorous evaluation, and then spread them like wildfire through policing.”

​Among these tools is an AI search system that speeds up video search by 60 percent, finding suspects in hours of CCTV, mobile phone, or doorbell camera footage. The technology is being tested by two police forces.

Another key use of AI in policing is predictive analytics, which analyzes data and intelligence to identify the communities where crime is happening.

Last year, the Home Office announced plans for a real-time and interactive crime map of England and Wales that can detect, track and predict theft, anti-social behaviour, knife crime and violent crime. The mapping technology is being supported with £4 million (US$5.3 million) in  government investments and should be rolled out by 2030, according to Technology Secretary Peter Kyle. Initial prototypes are expected by April 2026

​Marsh believes that predictive policing could also be used to identify the 1,000 most dangerous men who pose the highest risk to women and girls in England and Wales.

“We know the data and case histories tell us that, unfortunately, it’s far from uncommon for these individuals to move from one female victim to another, and we understand all of the difficulties of bringing successful cases to bear in court,” he says “So what we want to do is use these predictive tools to take the battle to those individuals.”

A New Year’s resolution for AI – don’t blame the bot

Article Topics

AI  |  criminal ID  |  facial recognition  |  law enforcement  |  UK