Britain’s policing system, we are told, is broken. And on Monday, the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, announced that the fix would arrive in the form of algorithms, facial recognition vans, and a large check made out to the future.
The government plans to spend £140m ($191M) on artificial intelligence and related technology, with the promise that it will free up six million police hours a year, the equivalent of 3,000 officers.
It is being billed as the biggest overhaul of policing in England and Wales in 200 years, aimed at dragging a creaking system into the modern world.
The ambition is serious. The implications are too.
The plan is for AI software that will analyze CCTV, doorbell, and mobile phone footage, detect deepfakes, carry out digital forensics, and handle administrative tasks such as form filling, redaction, and transcription. Mahmood’s argument is that criminals are getting smarter, while parts of the police service are stuck with tools that belong to another era.
She put it plainly: “Criminals are operating in increasingly sophisticated ways. However, some police forces are still fighting crime with analogue methods.”
And she promised results: “We will roll out state-of-the-art tech to get more officers on the streets and put rapists and murderers behind bars.”
There is logic here. Few people would argue that trained officers should be buried in paperwork. Technology can help with that. The concern is what else comes with it.
Live facial recognition is being expanded aggressively. The number of police vans equipped with the technology will increase fivefold, from ten to fifty, operating across the country. These systems scan faces in public spaces and compare them to watch lists of wanted individuals.
This is a form of mass surveillance and when automated systems get things wrong, the consequences fall on real people.
Hellbound and Down 