Artificial intelligence (AI) plays a key role in shaping future police services, making investigations more refined and efficient, and strengthening capabilities by freeing up officer time.
The National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) wants to establish UK policing as a leader in application responsibility AI, but despite a significant increase in experiments across existing, new or expected challenges, these are primarily confined to niche capabilities or individual troops.
The National Policing Functional Unit (NPCU) of the Ministry of Home Affairs came to the Acceleration Capacity Environment (ACE) to explore a high-level operating model of how in-house AI labs can bring together technical expertise from industry and academia and apply key research to policing issues and data, enabling greater innovation.
Development and distribution of AI Labs
ACE conducted discovery exercises with six suppliers to explore how AI labs can provide police and their partners with the support and expertise they need to quickly adopt trustworthy AI technology, leaving the environment, risks, and adopt trustworthy AI technology.
This study had to answer key questions such as how such AI labs could be developed and delivered, how this would be involved in the power, the value it provides, and how it would work with policing areas focused on existing technologies.
As part of the discovery work, two stakeholder workshops were held to cover areas such as mapping of interest, technical assessment and capabilities baselines, and value cases and delivery models.
Issues and considerations in core areas such as skills and talent, data access and governance, funding and facilities (virtual vs. physical vs. hybrid) were also considered. This study explored how existing work in areas such as data science, analytics, and synthetic data could accelerate and complement the development of AI labs.
Finally, three AI lab design and operational model options were developed and badged in the final report as bronze, silver and gold, with high levels, a three-year roadmap, and costs to guide the lab from concept to work ability.
Bronze was ultimately discounted as it was a continuation of existing investment levels and efforts and did not offer AI labs nationwide. Silver options that meet all policing requirements over the next 1-3 years were considered feasible, but within 18 months it was a gold option that would create a world-leading AI lab with future proof designs.
The ACE itself was also used as a model for how effective AI labs work.
