The Home Office is to allow police officers to use artificial intelligence to review and summarise evidence for the first time, in reforms the department said would free up officer time and deliver swifter justice for victims.
Minister for Policing and Crime Prevention Sarah Jones said officers were wasting thousands of hours trawling through phones, emails, messages, videos and cloud storage because of outdated regulations, and that time should be spent supporting victims, investigating crime and bringing offenders to justice. "By embracing AI and new technology responsibly, we will boost productivity, bring policing into the 21st Century and free officers to focus on the frontline," she said.
Changes proposed by the Home Office include legislating to permit the use of AI in reviewing evidence; moving towards centralised procurement of police technology and establishing a national governance forum for disclosure technology, bringing together experts from policing, the judiciary, prosecutors and government to provide oversight of emerging technologies and ensure robust safeguards are in place.
The measures are amongst the key recommendations from Jonathan Fisher KC's Independent Review of Disclosure and Fraud Offences, published by the government last year to examine how technology could be utilised to assist the police in fraud investigations.
The disclosure regime for criminal proceedings is governed by the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 and its accompanying Code of Practice. The Home Office noted that the current guidance for managing evidence was introduced in 1996, before iPhones, Google, Facebook or WhatsApp existed, when case files were often contained in a single box. Some investigations now involve over 500,000 e-books' worth of data and an average fraud case contains over 4 million documents.
Under the current system, officers manually process and provide a written summary for every file that could be relevant to an investigation. Under the proposals, officers will be able to use technology to identify, sort and compile millions of files that are currently reviewed manually.
PoliceAI — the National Centre for Police AI — will pilot tools capable of automatically generating summaries of digital material, with a view to scaling across all police forces in 2027. The governmebr claims that this will free up an estimated 6 million hours of police time per year by 2028, equivalent to 3,000 extra officers.
Al Murray, interim director of PoliceAI, said the disclosure process was an essential safeguard in the justice system, but the scale of digital evidence in modern investigations required modern solutions. "PoliceAI's role is to help policing adopt these capabilities in a way that is evidence-based, ethical and trusted, ensuring forces have access to tools that have been rigorously tested and supported by robust national standards and oversight," Murray said. "This is not about replacing people with technology. It is about giving officers better tools to meet the demands of modern policing."
The Policing Productivity Review estimated that officers spent approximately 532,000 hours in 2022/23 undertaking disclosure work and building case files which were later assessed by the CPS as requiring no further action.
Graham McNulty QPM, director of the Serious Fraud Office, welcomed the government's response, saying modern fraud, bribery and corruption cases involve vast amounts of digital data and the disclosure regime must keep pace with that reality. He added he was particularly pleased that government will be exploring opportunities to pilot a new Intensive Disclosure Regime.
Chief Constable Tim De Meyer, disclosure lead for the National Police Chiefs' Council, said good disclosure practice was essential for the fair and impartial investigation needed to ensure a fair trial, and that the review showed how complicated disclosure had become and how the safe and responsible use of technology could make the system more efficient. "The NPCC is committed to working with partners across the criminal justice system to deliver the recommendations," De Meyer said.
The Home Office announcement is available on GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ai-to-speed-up-justice-under-major-disclosure-reforms
