UK government developing murder prediction tool

An open letter coordinated by Big Brother Watch and signed by over 30  human rights, racial justice and civil liberties groups and academics warned ministers about proposals contained under clause 80 of the Data (Use and Access) Bill (DUA Bill) that would permit law enforcement agencies to deploy automated decision-making (ADM) systems in certain circumstances without human oversight. 

While the DUA Bill would prohibit fully automated decisions based on special categories of personal data like race, ethnicity, political opinions, or religion, the letter argues that these bans are not absolute. It suggests that police could exploit loopholes using "common law and a patchwork of laws pre-dating the technological revolution."

The letter also points out that even a complete ban on using these specific categories would not prevent discrimination, as ADM systems could still rely on data such as socio-economic status, regional/postcode data, inferred emotions, or regional accents, which can act as proxies for protected characteristics like race. The signatories argue that this "greatly expands the possibilities for bias, discrimination, and lack of transparency' in law enforcement."

Furthermore, the government's impact assessment for the DUA Bill recognises this risk, stating that "those with protected characteristics such as race, gender, and age are more likely to face discrimination from ADM due to historical biases in datasets."

Read the full Statewatch report.

The open letter follows the release of several documents obtained by Statewatch through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) revealing a secret project by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) known as the Homicide Prediction Project. 

The project, a collaboration between the MoJ, the Home Office, Greater Manchester Police (GMP), and the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), was commissioned by the Prime Minister's office and aims to predict individuals at future risk of committing murder. 

The predictive tool utilises data from the MoJ, the Police National Computer, and GMP to generate predictions. A Data Sharing Agreement between the MoJ and GMP indicates that GMP shared data on between 100,000 and 500,000 individuals for the tool's development.

In a statement, Rebecca Vincent, interim director of Big Brother Watch, said: "We are alarmed by reports that the government is developing a programme enabling machines to predict who might become a murderer. We know that algorithms can get it wrong, that AI can get it wrong, and that police themselves can get it wrong, even when crimes have already taken place – they must not be allowed to use pervasive technology to target innocent people who have not committed any crime. The privacy implications are enormous, representing a human rights nightmare reminiscent of science fiction that has no place in the real world, and certainly not in a democracy. This dangerous programme should be immediately scrapped and should never see the light of day."

In a submission to The Guardian's letters section, Ilyas Nagdee, Racial Justice Director for Amnesty International UK, said: "the collection and automation of data has repeatedly led to the targeting of racialised and low-income communities, and must come to an end.

"For many years, successive governments have invested in data-driven and data-based systems, stating they will increase public safety – yet individual police forces and Home Office evaluations have found no compelling evidence that these systems have had any impact on reducing crime.

"Feedback loops are created by training these systems using historically discriminatory data, which leads to the same areas being targeted once again. These systems are neither revelatory nor objective. They merely subject already marginalised communities to compounded discrimination. They aren't predictive at all, they are predictable – and dangerous."