Britain’s Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has announced plans to ramp up the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and live facial recognition
The Labour government’s largest policing overhaul in 200 years, will include the creation of a ‘British FBI,’ sparking human rights concerns
Sharing her vision for the future of the UK, Mahmood claims that sweeping reforms are needed to fix Britain’s “broken” policing system.
Does she know that George Orwell’s 1984 was meant to be a work of fiction, not an instruction manual?
As part of the biggest overhaul of an “outdated” policing model, Mahmood is investing £140m to roll out the technology which she hopes will free up 6 million police hours each year or the equivalent of 3,000 officers,
Every police force in the country will be able to use live facial recognition vans as part of the overhaul.
The Independent reports: Ms Mahmood said: “Criminals are operating in increasingly sophisticated ways. However, some police forces are still fighting crime with analogue methods.
“We will roll out state-of-the-art tech to get more officers on the streets and put rapists and murderers behind bars.”
The government is also increasing the number of live facial recognition vans fivefold, from 10 to 50, which will be used by forces across the country to help catch wanted criminals.
The measures, announced on Monday, are part of the biggest overhaul to policing in England and Wales in 200 years. Other changes include:
- Formation of an FBI-style National Police Service (NPS) to tackle terrorism, fraud and serious organised crime
- A “significant reduction” in the number of police forces in England and Wales, which could see the 43 forces merged into as few as 12 mega-forces
- Neighbourhood policing teams in every council ward to tackle the “epidemic” of everyday crime
- Officers required to hold and renew a mandatory “licence to practice” in order to serve
- Home secretary given powers to sack chief constables and drive up standards in struggling forces
The government’s white paper unveiled the plans to embrace AI, with the formation of a national centre dedicated to using the new technology, called Police.AI, despite an AI “hallucination” influencing the controversial decision by West Midlands Police to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a match in Birmingham last year.
The AI policing centre will also help to roll out successful projects nationally, such as AI chatbots being trialled by some forces to triage non-urgent online queries.
The white paper also includes plans to review whether the policing of non-crime hate incidents (NCHI) is “proportionate”.
The new NPS – designed to tackle serious crime – has been described as “Britain’s FBI” and will merge the existing National Crime Agency (NCA), Counter Terror Policing, the National Police Air Service and National Roads Policing all under a single organisation.
It will be led by a new national police commissioner, who will serve as the country’s most senior police chief.