The principal mission for the police is to ensure that residents are safe. This requires pursuing measures to prevent crime and other threats to the safety of the public. It requires investigating crimes, enforcing the law and prosecuting those who break the law.
There are many factors that contribute to effective policing. The most important of these is employment and deployment of professional police officers and police staff. There can be no substitute for dedicated, motivated and selfless police officers and police staff.
Of course, as in any other profession, policing is reliant on the use of equipment and technology. However, equipment and technology are there to support human thinking, decision-making and action.
As in other public services, businesses and even private lives, the use of technology in policing is growing in importance and reach.
This is particularly the case with the application of AI to support police activities, improve productivity, prevent crime, enforce the law and keep people safe.
Bedfordshire Police is leading the way nationally with the use of AI, from redacting reports to human resource management to interrogating multi-data sources to improving administration to live facial recognition.
The application of AI will increase and is likely to do so exponentially over the next few years.
Live facial recognition
A great example is the application of AI technology to extract data simultaneously from dozens of sources and create an operational dashboard of suspects and other facilitating information.
Read: Bedfordshire Police demonstrates live facial recognition in Bedford town centre
This has led to an eighty per cent reduction in the time taken to complete subject files and a seventy-five per cent reduction in the time spent on building plans to support effective operational policing.
This frees up officers to focus on what matters. It can lead to faster detainment of suspects, to disruption of organised crime gang activities and to making the county safer.
AI has a major role to play in areas of policing and local government, such as safeguarding, firearms licencing and tactical resource deployment. In time, it may be used for predictive forecasting of crime and consequently both crime reduction and arrests.
Live facial recognition (LFR) has been successfully deployed in Bedford and Luton in the last few weeks, leading to arrests of suspects for whom there were outstanding warrants. In time, it will be used to locate missing vulnerable people.
I have written previously about my support for LFR and the safeguards that are in place to protect the rights of citizens.
In time, AI may be used to make some decisions that would otherwise be made by warranted police officers. Currently, this is not the case, and it is an enabler, not an executive decision maker. As this evolution continues, greater safeguards and scrutiny will be essential.
I have agreed a memorandum of understanding with the Chief Constable on the use of LFR. He has operational responsibility and decision-making making whilst I set the strategic framework and hold him to account for its use
However, given the increasing application of AI in policing and the understandable public discourse about the use of AI more generally,
I am introducing new governance, advisory and scrutiny arrangements to ensure the proper use of the technology, transparency and accountability.
Advisory Panel
I am setting up and starting to recruit to an independent AI Advisory Panel to provide independent oversight, guidance, and ethical scrutiny of the use and deployment of AI technologies within policing.
The panel will ensure that AI applications are lawful, ethical, transparent, and aligned with the public interest.
The panel will review and advise on proposed AI deployments prior to implementation. It will assess the ethical, legal, and societal implications of AI technologies, and scrutinise the application of AI, including LFR.
Membership of the panel will include an Independent Chair appointed by me, specialists in AI, ethics and the law, as well as a community representative.
This ethics advisory panel will report to me, and I will share its advice with the Chief Constable and expect him to have due regard to its advice.
In turn, I will hold him to account for the use of AI as I do for ensuring that the police service is effective and efficient.
This is very much part of my commitment to building trust and confidence in Bedfordshire Police and to ensuring that we create a safer and fairer Bedfordshire.
Nationally, I am the joint portfolio lead for the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners on the police application of AI and associated ethics. I am determined to use the insights and learning that I secure from the national role to benefit Bedfordshire.
However, given Bedfordshire’s leadership in the use of AI, I expect the traffic of ideas and knowledge will go in both directions.
AI is not the panacea to problems in policing, but the policing process and objectives should lead, and A1 can facilitate better outcomes. Our duty is to ensure that it does so ethically, lawfully and with public trust and support.
This is a monthly guest column provided by
elected Police and Crime Commissioner, John Tizard (Labour).
It is published unedited and does
not reflect the views of the Bedford Independent.
