Police use of AI ‘outrageous and unforgivable privacy invasion’ – say the police
Police use of AI ‘outrageous and unforgivable privacy invasion’ – say the police
Publish Date: 2026-05-15 09:55:00
Source Domain: www.biometricupdate.com
By Professor Fraser Sampson, former UK Biometrics & Surveillance Camera Commissioner
Condemnation of police forces deploying ‘opaque and untested’ surveillance tools is nothing new. A cursory online rummage will reveal almost daily coverage of public concerns about AI-enabled technology like facial recognition being piloted by police forces. But last week’s challenge to the latest covert deployment of new technology came from within policing itself.
Damning comments from the Police Federation of England and Wales followed the revelation that the Metropolitan Police Service has been using covert AI-powered technology to monitor its officers’ movements, communications and data access. Almost 600 cases have reportedly been highlighted – 42 of them involving senior ranks. After what the General Secretary of the staff association called ‘an outrageous and unforgivable invasion of privacy’, 100 officers are now under investigation for gross misconduct with another 30 being ‘flagged for suspicious behaviour’.
Police use of AI-enabled technology has two aspects. The first is law enforcement and other operational functions – the bit that gets the headlines. The second is tackling the more mundane administrative tasks shared by all big organisations with workforce, estate, logistics and finance issues. But, given their investigative powers and duties, where are the boundaries for the use of covert internal monitoring to catch rule breakers? Is this ‘policing’? Intelligence gathering is a key police function and the company supplying the software – Palantir– is named after the magical stones used in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy to gather intelligence so perhaps there’s a clue. Either way, the covert internal deployment of AI-enabled technology in the police workplace matters for a few reasons.
First, the wider security case for using new technology in this way is compelling. The public expect high standards of…
