Britain's police forces are getting a high–tech upgrade, as artificial intelligence (AI) tools are rolled out to tackle crime.
As part of major police reforms, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has announced that over £140 million will be invested in new technology.
Police will be given access to facial recognition vans, tools for rapid CCTV analysis, and a suite of digital forensics tools.
How the public interacts with the police is also set to change, as 999 control rooms use 'AI–assisted operator services' to filter 'non–policing calls'.
In addition, forces will roll out AI chatbots to deal with non–urgent queries from victims of crime, the Home Office's police reform White Paper said.
Ms Mahmood claims the new technologies will help to 'get more officers on the streets and put rapists and murders [sic] behind bars'.
She added: 'Criminals are operating in increasingly sophisticated ways. However, some police forces are still fighting crime with analogue methods.'
However, not everyone is so convinced, with privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch calling the reforms 'better suited for an authoritarian state than a liberal democracy.'
British police forces will receive a high–tech upgrade as Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announces more than £140 million in funding for tech, including 50 facial recognition vans (pictured) per police force
Virtual chatbots
Thames Valley Police and Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary recently became the first police forces in the UK to trial a new AI Virtual Assistant, known as Bobbi.
Bobbi is designed to answer frequently asked, non–emergency questions that come into the police.
Just like ChatGPT, Bobbi can speak to you as if it were a human and answer any questions you might have.
The big difference is that Bobbi uses 'closed source information', meaning it only has information provided to it by the police.
Questions that cannot be answered by the chatbot, or if the member of the public specifies they want to speak with a human, will be passed on to a 'Digital Desk' operator.
Live facial recognition
Ms Mahmood also announced that the number of live facial recognition vans will triple under the plan, with 50 vans being made available to every police force in England and Wales.
Thames Valley Police and Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary recently became the first police forces in the UK to trial a new AI Virtual Assistant, known as Bobbi
Live facial recognition vans work by recording the features of every single passerby and taking measurements of their face, such as the distance between the eyes.
This data is then compared to an existing watch–list while an officer checks the matches flagged by the system.
Under current rules, the technology can only be used to search for watch lists of wanted criminals, suspects, or individuals subject to bail or court order conditions.
The government says that this technology will be 'governed by data protection, equality and human rights laws' and that faces flagged by the facial recognition system must also be reviewed and confirmed by officers before action is taken.
Even still, rights groups have expressed concerns over the expansion of this surveillance technology.
Brother Watch Advocacy Manager, Matthew Feeney, says: 'An expansion of facial recognition on this scale would be unprecedented in liberal democracies, and would represent the latest in a regrettable trend.
'Police across the UK have already scanned the faces of millions of innocent people who have done nothing except go about their days on high streets across the country.'
The watchlists used by facial recognition vans include criminals, but also witnesses to crimes and innocent people who have been misidentified.
The expansion of facial recognition technology has drawn criticism from privacy campaigners who point out that the Government is yet to complete its facial recognition consultation, which would provide a legal framework for the technology
This week, the Metropolitan Police will face a High Court judicial review over whether the force is unlawfully deploying the technology over London.
The case is being brought by an anti–knife crime worker, Shaun Thompson, with support from Big Brother Watch, after Mr Thompson was mistakenly stopped and questioned.
The Government is also yet to finish its facial recognition consultation, which would provide a legal framework for deploying live facial recognition.
Retrospective facial recognition
In addition to these vans, Ms Mahmood announced police forces will receive new tools for 'retrospective facial recognition'.
This AI–powered technology is capable of recognising faces, or even specific objects, within video from CCTV, video doorbells, and mobile footage submitted as evidence.
Deepfake detection tools
Additionally, Ms Mahmood announced the rollout of new tools designed to detect AI–generated deepfakes.
Alongside expanded facial recognition tools (pictured), police forces will also be equipped with digital forensics tools and new technology to automate data entry and paperwork
As well as avoiding misleading fake images online, this will help crack down on criminal misuse of AI deepfake services.
Earlier this month, science minister Liz Kendall announced that the government would ban AI 'nudification' tools and make it an offence to produce sexualised deepfakes of a person without their consent.
This follows the immense backlash against Elon Musk's Grok AI tool, which was used to generate huge numbers of non–consensual sexualised deepfakes of X users.
Digital forensics tools
This comes alongside the rollout of new digital forensics tools that help to speed up gathering and analysis of evidence.
According to the Government, one digital forensics tool used by Avon and Somerset Police reviewed 27 cases in a single day – a backlog that would have originally taken 81 years and 118 officers.
Translation tools
Forces will also receive tools to transcribe and translate audio into usable formats automatically.
So–called 'Robotic process automation' will automate data entry, with recent pilots suggesting the tech can free up the working hours of nearly 10 officers.
Smart audiovisual redaction tools
Meanwhile, redacting tools that automatically blur faces and mute sensitive details such as number plates could reduce the time spent redacting case files by 60 per cent.
That is equivalent to freeing up 11,000 officer days per month across all forces in the country, according to the Government's calculations.
Ryan Wain, senior director of Politics and policy at the Tony Blair Institute, says: 'It's indefensible that people have been denied proven crime–fighting technology because of fragmented police structures.
'With proper safeguards, this is a straightforward boost to public safety. The danger now is delay. Incrementalism is the enemy of safety.'
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