The Home Office has released a new White Paper introducing sweeping reforms to UK police, from the launch of a National Police Service to the roll out of increased AI and facial recognition.

The new white paper will see major reform across UK policing, with the consolidation of forces across England and Wales, more cross-border collaboration with Police Scotland, and the centralisation of the police infrastructure model.

National Police Service

The National Police Service will see the National Crime Agency, Counter Terrorism Policing, regional organised crime units, police helicopters, and national roads policing come together in a single organisation.

This will better allow these organisations to share technology, intelligence, and resources; it will also take over responsibilities for forensics, including digital forensics, from 43 local forces.

The new National Police Service will also take on the responsibility for shared services, equipment, and IT procurement, rather than leave these remits to individual local authorities. The service will buy equipment on behalf of all police forces operating in England and Wales.

Technology

The UK government is investing over £140 million to roll out technologies across UK policing.

The number of live facial recognition vans is set to increase five-fold, with 50 vans available to every police force in England Wales.

Further, the government will also roll out new AI tools to help identify people from CCTV and other video footage submitted as evidence. Live facial recognition technology is set to receive about £11.6 million in funding to improve its capabilities across police.

A national facial recognition system is also set to receive £26m to launch.

A new national centre on AI – Police.AI – will be set up to roll out AI to all forces in an effort to decrease the burden of paperwork on officers.

Further, Police.AI will act as a registry of AI deployments across the police force, providing guidance on how forces can ensure these tools are functional and reliable.

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The White Paper also aims to see more tech specialists working in police forces to fight fraud and cyber-crime, as well as access important information via devices for criminal conviction.

To do this, the Home Office says it will work with the police forces to recruit specialists in cybersecurity and technology, making it easier for people to volunteer their skills.

The move to increase tech skills, technology investment, and to integrate forces shows the growing threat of complex crimes involving technology.

Fragmented forces have often hampered investigations that could have benefited from uniform and consolidated data.

Further, local forces are able to make their own decisions when it comes to the integration of new technologies like AI and facial recognition.

While these remain controversial, especially in the context of law enforcement, the patchy reception between police forces means that these technologies are rolled out with shaky foundations in technology and regulation.