Insights on digital, data and technology
The Police Digital Service (PDS) is running a proof of concept (PoC) to support policing’s awareness and collective understanding of national digital, data and technology transformation initiatives. It is also aiming to provide a feedback loop for forces on national programmes.
Entitled Digital and Change Insights (D&CI), the initiative was commissioned to run from December 2024 to May 2025. The PoC is evaluating the aims of national programmes, planning and coordination, support provided to forces, funding, benefits, and risks & issues. It is currently gathering inputs from a small group of participating national programmes and PDS is engaging with 18 forces along the way.
The programmes chosen for this PoC are at different stages, from new commissions through to ones that are currently delivering solutions to forces. Examples of programmes include:
From the Home Office- Law Enforcement Data Service and International Law Enforcement Alerts Platform.
From PDS - Asset Recovery IT, Digital Case File, Digital Fingerprint Capability and National Firearms Licensing Management Replacement.
D&CI gives a quick snapshot of national programmes, to inform understanding, capturing both forces’ and programmes’ feedback. The aim is to show how well programmes align with policing’s requirements. This is crucial for the successful development and delivery of digital transformation initiatives.
D&CI is due to end in May. Learning from the PoC’s outputs, the PDS will submit a high-level business case for future funding, with a view to providing an insights service for policing.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) drive
The PDS is working in partnership with the NPCC’s Digital Public Contact programme, Humberside Police and Untrite to deliver a potentially transformational capability.
In early 2023, PDS worked with Humberside Police and Untrite, to successfully integrate AI technology into their contact management processes, for domestic abuse calls. AI assisted call handlers, focused on transcription, data mapping, and risk analysis. The capability was proven to give a ‘safety net’ for call handlers, enabling them to provide a seamless victim experience, whilst the AI assistant recorded important information. It also carried out a small number of background searches to inform an appropriate police response.
This initiative proved the concept and benefits of AI, used for a smaller set of calls involving one crime type. The trial is expanding to cover all calls coming into the control room, with use cases for both 101 and 999 calls. This includes interfacing with command and control, records management systems and other line of sight systems. The goal is to assist operators with more efficient and effective call handling with the public, building on the original projects focus on domestic abuse calls.
PDS is collaborating with academic partners to review the work and its impact, which has only been made possible through the support provided by the National Science and Innovation Board via ‘Test and Learn’ funding. This is measuring the technical and behavioural impact of implementing AI into this area of policing. Results will be circulated with relevant innovation boards in the coming months.
