There is a strong interest in the UK and elsewhere in expanding the use of new big data tools in policing, with government, industry and the public sector all focused on realising the considerable potential benefits for greater efficiency and effectiveness. New technologies such as artificial intelligence, now offer unprecedented opportunities to improve productivity and effectiveness with local and national consequences. Key examples include data aggregation, AI bots in call centres and intelligence workstreams, criminal justice processing with auto-transcription and redaction and live facial recognition. All of these show great promise but effective adoption relies on a range of factors other than technology:

• Public engagement to ensure the police maintain and build public trust and confidence in these technologies.
• Monitoring and guard rails for accountability and to ensure its application is aligned with the values of the public.
• Understanding across the government and policing leadership of what new technologies can accomplish, to encourage adoption and help scale these technologies, while maintaining effective governance and regulatory control.

This new Police Foundation research, funded by Palantir, seeks to address some of the key questions and challenges facing the police in the adoption of new data technologies. These include:

• What are public’s views and attitudes towards the police use of new data technologies in policing?
• Can new data tools, including AI software, generate organisational efficiencies that improve frontline service delivery?
• What does effective adoption of new data technologies look like, and what are the key institutional barriers and challenges?

Data collection to address these questions will include engagement with stakeholder from across policing, the government and other sectors, in-depth examination of use-cases from across policing, and a national survey and focus groups with members of the public.