THE POLICE DATA CHALLENGE Copyright Policing Insight/Cognyte 2023 The principles were developed to provide an “ethical lens” around decision-making, and “enable some deep-dive thinking around how technology could impact on people, or how we use it, or be perceived to do some harm,” she explained. “Because as we know, it’s not the technology that causes the harm, it’s how we use it. “As police we’ve got a job to do; we’re here to keep our community safe, but not at the expense of causing undue harm. We need to understand what that looks like, by placing our policing requirements on one side of the scale, and understanding the risks – unintended harms – of using that technology on the other. Gaining public support Similar concerns around recognising and understanding the ethical issues and risks were a driver for the work with communities undertaken by Supt Lewis Prescott-Mayling in his role as lead for the Thames Valley Together approach. “We need to engage our communities about the use of things such as facial recognition – and any use of their data, frankly,” explained Supt Prescott-Mayling. “We have quite a significant Data Ethics Committee that we’ve set up now with our community members and with the Big Data Institute at the University of Oxford. “We should be more open with our communities about where we’re policing, what tactics we’re employing, and where these risk factors stack up of people and place, so we know that services are being commissioned to work in these communities that are in the greatest need. We’re not over policing them; we’re actually supporting them. “To get to that place we probably need to be a bit more open with our data, and engage our communities in what our activity is so they can feed back and be involved in that, and in those decisions on how we use their data and how we police.” And Thames Valley Police is far from alone. For former West Midlands Police Chief Constable Sir David Thompson, the work of his force’s Data Ethics Committee was vital in ensuring the use of data was both ethical and transparent, which in turn could garner public support. “One of the things I think it’s really important that policing does is to be able to demonstrate how it is testing itself on the application of these technologies against appropriate human rights and ethical principles,” Sir David told Policing Insight. “We’re here to keep our community safe, but not at the expense of causing undue harm. We need to understand what that looks like, by placing our policing requirements on one side of the scale, and understanding the risks – unintended harms – of using that technology on the other.” Inspector Carla Gilmore New Zealand Police Inspector Carla Gilmore New Zealand Police