The Government is making a £140 million investment in technology in wide-ranging plans to reform UK policing.
A new national centre on AI – Police.AI – will be set up to roll out AI to all forces, which the Government said will free officers from paperwork, delivering up to six million hours back to the frontline every year – the equivalent of 3,000 police officers.
The Government will also roll out new AI tools which will help forces identify suspects from CCTV, doorbell and mobile phone footage that has been submitted as evidence by the public.
Police.AI: a national digital platform for policing
As set out in a new Home Office whitepaper, at the centre of the reform programme is the creation of a new national AI centre: Police.AI.
Police.AI will act as a national delivery and scaling hub, responsible for rolling out AI tools across all police forces. Its core mission is operational efficiency: using automation and AI to remove administrative burden and bureaucracy from policing.
This, said the Home Office, translates to:
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- Up to 6 million hours a year returned to frontline policing
- Equivalent to 3,000 police officers
- Reduced paperwork
- Faster case handling
- More visible policing in communities
Live facial recognition
Another flagship element of the investment is the expansion of live facial recognition (LFR) capability. The number of operational LFR vans will increase five-fold, with 50 vans made available across every police force in England and Wales.
The Government said this significantly increases the ability of forces to identify and apprehend violent and sexual offenders in public spaces, using real-time biometric matching against authorised watchlists.
From a digital government perspective, this is a move from pilot-scale deployments to national operational infrastructure, requiring interoperable data systems, robust governance frameworks, ethical AI assurance and strong cyber and information security controls.
Investment in tech specialists and forensics
The reforms also outline investment being funnelled into people and skills, with more tech specialists embedded in police forces with the goal of countering organised and cyber-enabled crime, disrupting fraud networks, tackling digital evidence challenges and supporting complex investigations.
New capabilities will also strengthen digital forensics, enabling forces to uncover hidden and encrypted evidence on devices such as phones and laptops.
