AI and Policing: Impact Assessment and Empirical Evidence Needed

Abstract

This paper is about the report ‘Data Analytics and Algorithms in Policing in England and Wales’ written by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and commissioned by the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation to study the use of data analytics by police force, with a focus on algorithmic bias. In this piece we will first provide a summary of the report and then further comment on three core areas of the report: the need of governance, the integrated impact assessment, and the discussion about transparency, explainability and accountability. We used the descriptive methodology with document analyses as research technique.

Keywords: Digital ethics, Data ethics, AI, RUSI, algorithmic bias