Protecting the public, without invading their privacy
Data is an integral part of the UK police community’s ability to operate. Whilst Machine Learning (ML) applications within this area are in their infancy, the use of algorithms to support decision making needs considered democratic oversight and expansive public engagement to ensure confidence in appropriate use of data. In this paper, our Futures Senior Consultant, Simon outlines key legislation, provides definitions for privacy and proportionality, and discusses the South Wales Police trial of Automatic Facial Recognition (AFR) and legal challenges brought to its usage of the technology. The requirements to continue development of legal and ethical AFR implementation are considered through specificity of their deployment and management of bias mitigation.
The data privacy landscape
South Wales Police’s (SWP) trial of AFR offers opportunity to explore the legal and ethical challenges of such technologies within the UK policing arena in delivering the above mission. Whilst facial identification using images has been established since the 19th Century (Gates, 2004), capabilities to automate this process are increasingly available. AFR is a Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) which compares the image of one individual against another to generate a similarity score: “biometric comparisons with higher match scores are more likely to be from the same individual” (Adler and Schuckers, 2007).
The balance between individual privacy and proportionality for police in delivering their mission to make communities safer is an ongoing discussion. This paper outlines key legislation, provides definitions for privacy and proportionality, and discusses the South Wales Police trial of AFR and legal challenges brought to their usage of the technology. The requirements to continue development of legal and ethical AFR implementation are considered through specificity of their deployment and management of bias mitigation.
Download the full whitepaper
For a deeper look at balancing privacy and proportionality in UK policing, read our in-depth paper. We cover the following areas:
- Privacy and proportionality
- AFR technology deployment
- Specificity
- Model bias
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If you would like to know more about any of these topics or how Roke can help support your organisations digitalisation journey, please get in touch.
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