Bedfordshire Police use AI to save hours on admin duties

Artificial Intelligence is helping Bedfordshire police officers to spend less time on administration and more time on frontline duties

The Policing Minister has urged forces to follow Bedfordshire in using artificial intelligence (AI) to carry out admin tasks.

AI is used to redact personal data from case files before they go to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

Detectives found it performed the task in minutes, whereas traditional methods could take them days.

Chris Philp MP said AI could transform policing in "a radical and revolutionary way".

When detectives investigate a crime, they produce a case file for the CPS including witness statements, phone records and other evidence.

To comply with data protection laws, personal data such as phone numbers, addresses and vehicle registrations must be removed before the file is shared.

Only data relevant to the investigation can remain.

Det Con James Carrington-Read says using AI for redaction has saved him many hours which can be spent on other tasks

Det Con James Carrington-Read said: "Until now, we've had to redact those documents manually.

"Some of them, like download data from seized mobile phones, contain hundreds of pages which could take a day or two for us to go through.

"This new system did it in around 15 minutes which means we can get on with other jobs."

Officers always review the results to make sure they are accurate, but it still takes up to 90% less time.

Det Ch Insp Jo Smith says innovation can be "challenging" in policing but this has made a big difference to officers

The head of the force's criminal investigation department, Det Ch Insp Jo Smith said: "It's important to retain a human element but we saw it as a necessary part of innovation to try to introduce something that would save officers time.

"In policing, innovation can be very challenging because of bureaucracy and red tape but it's made a really big difference to officers here."

The DocDefender system searches for categories of information chosen by each officer.

No data is stored for longer than 12 hours.

Policing Minister Chris Philp says "redaction is a huge time sink for police" and is urging forces to use AI technology

A recent report into policing productivity said technology would play a central role for police forces in future.

The National Police Chief's Council has established its own Science and Innovation Committee to focus on these changes.

The Policing Minister Chris Philp has also urged forces to embrace its potential to help police "stay ahead" of the criminals, prosecute them and become "more operationally efficient".

But privacy campaigners have raised concerns about government plans to expand facial recognition surveillance.

In November, every police chief in England signed a covenant for using AI in policing.

It means everyone using or developing the technology for policing must ensure it meets a set of principles to ensure it's lawful, transparent and robust.

Riven, which designed the DocDefender system with AWS, said: "We have several safeguards in place to ensure the technology is used responsibly.

"We are proud that it gives officers significant time back to police their communities."

Follow East of England news on Facebook, Instagram and X. Got a story? Email [e-mail] or WhatsApp [phone]