Nearly a third of all adults now have a smart doorbell and the rapid spread of this technology means the police must adapt to the volume of digital material that the public are now sharing in response to crime and disorder.
The findings are contained in a new Police Foundation report, Policing and Digital Citizen Evidence: Unleashing the potential for public participation, which calls for a nationally coordinated approach to harnessing digital evidence shared by members of the public.
The report explores how the use of evidence captured by technologies such as dashcams, smart doorbells, mobile phones, wearable devices and connected home technologies is transforming the relationship between citizens and the police.
Not only is it providing new means to investigate many common offences and empowering individuals to help prevent and detect crime, but it is generating a large volume of evidential material for police to manage.
The report defines digital citizen evidence as digital material generated by members of the public and voluntarily shared with police, either proactively or in response to a request. It argues that digital citizen evidence presents a major opportunity to strengthen people’s participation in public safety.
The research found that digital citizen evidence can:
- Support investigations and safeguarding
- Improve prevention and deterrence
- Increase public reassurance
- Identify evidence that might otherwise be missed
- Strengthen public participation in policing
- Contribute to road safety and wider public safety
The findings from the nationally representative YouGov survey conducted for this report show that citizen-owned surveillance technologies are now a routine part of everyday life for millions of people. The adoption of these consumer technologies is a step change in the spread of digital surveillance in the community reminiscent of the growth of CCTV cameras in the 1990s.
The survey results show:
- Half of adults (50 per cent) own and regularly use at least one citizen-initiated surveillance technology, such as a smart doorbell, journey camera or smart home device.
- Smart doorbells are the most widely used citizen-initiated surveillance technology, with almost a third (31 per cent) of adults reporting that they own and regularly use one. This compares with 30 per cent for smart home or internet of things devices and 18 per cent for journey cameras.
- Nearly seven in 10 adults (69 per cent) believe smart doorbells improve their personal safety and security. Among smart doorbell owners, this rises to 80 per cent.
- Over half of adults (58 per cent) believe journey cameras improve personal safety on the roads.
- Three in five adults (59 per cent) believe citizen-initiated surveillance technologies are effective at deterring crime. Among device owners, this rises to around two thirds (66 per cent).
- The public show a strong willingness to share digital evidence with police. More than nine in 10 adults (91 per cent) say they would be likely to share footage relating to a burglary inside their home, three quarters (75 per cent) would share footage of suspicious activity outside their home, nearly three quarters (73 per cent) would share footage of dangerous driving, and just under half (46 per cent) would share footage of speeding.
Taken together, the findings suggest that digital citizen evidence is already a mainstream feature of everyday life. Members of the public are generating digital evidence at scale, and they are willing to share it with police, creating significant opportunities for prevention, investigation and public participation in policing.
However, the report found that the way police handle digital citizen evidence is fragmented, with different practices operating across the country. While initiatives such as Operation Snap (where road users can submit footage of careless driving) demonstrate the benefits of citizen-submitted evidence, implementation of this initiative varies significantly between police forces. Members of the public who submit often receive limited feedback or may submit evidence and hear nothing back and there are inconsistent reporting routes and postcode variation, all of which can significantly impact public confidence.
Without national leadership and clear standards, policing will miss opportunities to improve public safety, while shifting the burden on the public to investigate their own crimes and even risking vigilantism when clear footage of offences is not acted upon by police.
The report argues that a successful national approach would enable citizens to share evidence easily and responsibly, improve investigations and prevention, protect privacy and civil liberties, provide meaningful feedback to the public and deliver measurable public safety benefits.
To support this, the report proposes a governance framework built around ten principles, including legitimacy, privacy, accessibility, sound evidence, human oversight and national consistency. These principles should guide policy and decision-making as technologies such as AI-assisted decision-making and automated triage are increasingly used by the police.
Key recommendations
The report makes seven recommendations:
- Establish a national framework for digital citizen evidence by September 2027.
- Put public trust, transparency and feedback at the centre of system design.
- Publish guidance on responsible and ethical evidence sharing.
- Develop accessible, scalable and accountable systems across policing.
- Create a long-term programme of research and evaluation to identify effective practice and assess the validity of emerging technologies.
- Embed privacy and ethics into citizen evidence technologies through national standards and collaboration with industry.
- Promote responsible use of citizen evidence technologies, making clear that individuals who choose to receive expensive packages at home should consider reasonable security measures that may deter offending or help identify offenders.
Ruth Halkon, Research Manager at the Police Foundation, who authored the report, said:
“Digital citizen evidence is already reshaping the relationship between the public and policing. The public are willing to participate. The challenge now is for policing to develop the systems, standards and safeguards needed to ensure that participation strengthens both public safety and public confidence. In short, the public would be able to share the right evidence with the right people in the right way, and policing would have the capability to use that evidence effectively and fairly.”
Blair Gibbs, Director of the Police Foundation said:
“This is a country where the public are already taking steps to keep their homes and property safe, and we should be encouraging the use of technologies like smart doorbells to help deter crime and support police investigations. In response our police need to step up and improve their offer to the public, so that when smart doorbells or other devices capture criminal activity, the public know that their footage will be easy to share with the police and always acted upon. If that does not happen, we risk missing opportunities to catch offenders which would further undermine public confidence in policing. This is one consumer revolution that is making all of us safer, but it relies on the police being ready and willing to act on the data and footage that is shared.”
Steve Rick, CEO of Forensic Analytics said:
“Digital citizen evidence matters because it starts with people wanting to help. Every clip, image or message shared with police is an act of trust: someone believes what they have seen matters and that the system will respond. This research comes at exactly the right time. Digital evidence is growing fast, policing is under pressure, and reform creates a real opportunity to get this right. At Forensic Analytics, we want to support a fair, trusted and practical approach: one that makes evidence easier to share, protects the public, helps investigators, and strengthens the relationship between police and communities.”
Leo Taylor, Director at Drivetech said:
“We welcome this report. Road safety is a key area where Digital Citizen Evidence can play a critical role in helping to establish what has happened, but also in helping to identify risks before they become incidents. We know that professional drivers already have a lot of tech in the cab that can support, such as dashcams. The acceptance of digital evidence in a regulated framework could be a gamechanger. It really has the potential to contribute significantly to road safety not only by recording incidents as they happen via dashcams but also by contributing to research into risky behaviours that can support driver training and even changes to the law.”
Anthony Grunstein, CEO, SOLV Technology said:
”New, innovative technologies are bringing policing’s Peelian tradition of collective responsibility into the 21st century. It’s now easier than ever before for the public to share digital evidence. The challenge will be for this new category of public participation to be integrated effectively. With technology advancing at a breathtaking pace, now is the time to establish a clear framework and develop systems nationally.”
Matthew Taylor, CEO of Dals, said:
“This report shines a light on one of the most pressing issues facing law enforcement. As policing embraces digital technology, accessibility and equality must be treated as essential principles, not afterthoughts. People should have an equal opportunity to engage with the police, share evidence and understand what happens next, regardless of the language they speak or the barriers they face. Language service providers have an important role to play in making digital channels genuinely inclusive, combining professional interpreting and translation with technology so that services are accessible, timely and affordable. Accountability, transparency, privacy and ethical practice remain vital, but they should give us the confidence to innovate responsibly rather than hold back progress. The message of the report is clear: seize the opportunity at pace, but with care, and ensure no one is left behind.”
The research was funded by Drivetech, Forensic Analytics, SOLV and Dals.