Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what work her Department has undertaken to assess AI pilot projects for police forces; and what discussions her Department has had with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade regarding Police AI.

Piloting, procuring and deploying of AI solutions by police forces is ultimately a matter for operationally independent Chief Constables, accountable to their locally elected Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs).

In April, the government established PoliceAI to support Chiefs and PCCs in making informed and responsible decisions about AI. This was established by the Home Secretary using funding powers in the Police Act 1996. PoliceAI is actively working with forces to implement AI pilots across a range of use cases and will undertake evaluation, testing and assurance of these pilots, with a view to supporting police rapidly scale the best tools. These pilots are vital to ensure the AI models are accurate and bias free, with robust safeguards in place to mitigate the risk of hallucinations.