FOI Digital Policing (0270-2022/23)

Request

- a request for information relating to your organisation’s development and/or use of digital decision tools for policing and law enforcement.

By digital decision tools, I mean any technology that uses software algorithms to process digital data and generate outputs either to (a) *support* policing decisions, by providing information or recommendations to a human police officer, who retains discretion in making the final decision; or (b) *automatically* trigger a policing or law enforcement decision based on the generated output(s).

By ‘policing and law enforcement decisions’, I mean any decisions taken by police officers in carrying out their duties to detect and prevent crime, to protect the public and reduce harm, to maintain public order, to enforce the law, and to bring offenders to justice. This may include (but is not limited to) decisions concerning the imposition of enforcement notices (e.g., speeding fines), case/complaints-handling, resource allocation, criminal investigations (particularly those concerning whether to pursue inquiries in relation to specific persons, and what action(s) to take, such as arrest or questioning, stop and search etc.), and decisions made at the pre-trial stage about individuals, including detention and charging decisions.

FOR EACH RELEVANT TOOL (UP TO TEN IN TOTAL), CAN YOU PLEASE:

1. Supply the *name(s)* of each tool, including any tool(s) which are no longer used (or were developed and/or piloted but never deployed).

2. Please specify the stage of maturity of each tool in terms of the following three possibilities (i) currently in operational use or formerly deployed for operational use (ii) currently under development or was developed in the past but never deployed (iii) currently being piloted or was piloted in the past, but never deployed.

3. Explain the *reason(s)* why your organisation decided to develop and/or deploy each tool, including the intended *policy purpose(s)* of the tool (e.g., to reduce criminal offending by aiming to improve the identification of potential victims of a criminal offence or to identify individuals ‘of interest’ to police, using the automated analysis of digital data).

4. Identify the data sources used as ‘inputs’ to the tool and indicate whether this data has been collected from internal police data sources (e.g., crime data), external public-sector data sources (e.g., data held by local authorities), or external data sources made available by private-sector organisations (e.g., mobile communications data). Please further indicate whether the tool is updated with new data on a manual basis, by a human user responsible for inputting data (including how frequently this usually occurs), or if it is updated on a real-time basis using an automated live data feed.

5. Identify the *output(s)* that each tool produces/produced in order to serve its intended policy purpose, and what these outputs are taken to *indicate or signify.* For example: an individual risk assessment tool may produce a ‘risk classification’ for each assessed person (e.g., ‘high’, ‘medium’ or ‘low risk’). What is it, specifically, that each person is at ‘high risk’ or ‘low risk’ of, in this scenario (e.g., being arrested under suspicion of having committed a serious offence within the next two years)?

6. Indicate the kind(s) of *decision(s)* each tool supports/supported or triggers/triggered and about *whom or what*? For example: who to stop and search? Where to send police patrols? Should an arrested person be retained in police custody?

7. Identify the *intended user(s)* of each tool. For example: does/did the tool provide information to a front-line officer on patrol, a duty officer in a custody suite, both, or someone else?

8. *List* and provide electronic copies of any *additional documents* or information relating to each tool, including:

• Any training manuals or materials for staff, promotional materials, briefing papers, reports, or records of performance evaluations and other technical documents that provide overviews or summary information about each tool.

• Any impact assessments (e.g., data protection or human rights impact assessments), or risk assessments, that have been undertaken in relation to the tool or tools indicated.

• Any legal documents relating to the assessment or statement of the legal authorisation/legal basis for using each tool.

Response 

Extent and Result of Searches to Locate Information

To locate the information relevant to your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police. I can confirm that North Yorkshire Police do not utilise any “digital decision tools” (as defined in this request).

Decision

As North Yorkshire Police hold no relevant information in respect of this request, there is no information to disclose in respect of this request.

Please note that systems used for recording information are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data.  It should be noted therefore that this force’s response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other responses you may receive.