{"id":882056,"date":"2025-12-31T23:11:55","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T05:11:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/31\/top-10-police-technology-stories-of-2025\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T23:11:55","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T05:11:55","slug":"top-10-police-technology-stories-of-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/31\/top-10-police-technology-stories-of-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 10 police technology stories of 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

In 2025, Computer Weekly\u2019s police technology coverage focused extensively on developments in the use of data-driven technologies such as facial recognition and predictive policing.<\/p>\n

This included stories on the Met\u2019s decision to deploy permanent live facial recognition (LFR) cameras in Croydon and the Home Office launching a formal consultation on laws to regulate its use, as well as reports highlighting the lawfulness, necessity and proportionality of how UK police are using the technology.<\/p>\n

Further stories continued Computer Weekly\u2019s ongoing coverage of police hyperscale cloud use, after documents obtained from Scottish policing bodies revealed that Microsoft is refusing to hand them critical information about its data flows.<\/p>\n

Computer Weekly also reported on efforts to change police data protection rules, which essentially legalise previously unlawful practices and pose a risk to the UK\u2019s law enforcement data adequacy with the European Union (EU).<\/p>\n

One investigation by freelance journalists Apostolis Fotiadis, Giacomo Zandonini and Lud\u011bk Stavinoha also revealed how the EU\u2019s law enforcement agency has been quietly amassing data to feed an ambitious-but-secretive artificial intelligence (AI) development programme.<\/p>\n

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<\/i>1.\u00a0Home Office launches police facial recognition consultation<\/a><\/h2>\n

The Home Office formally opened a consultation on the use of facial recognition by UK police<\/a> at the start of December 2025, saying the government is committed to introducing a legal framework that sets out clear rules for the technology.<\/p>\n

The move \u2013 initially announced by policing minister Sarah Jones in early October 2025<\/a> after then home secretary Yvette Cooper told a Lords Committee in July<\/a> that the UK government will create \u201ca proper, clear governance framework\u201d to regulate police use of the tech \u2013 marks a distinct shift in Home Office policy, which for years has claimed there is already \u201ccomprehensive\u201d legal framework in place.<\/p>\n

The Home Office has now said that although a \u201cpatchwork\u201d legal framework for police facial recognition exists (including for the increasing use of the\u00a0retrospective<\/a>\u00a0and \u201coperator-initiated<\/a>\u201d versions of the technology),\u00a0it does not give police themselves the confidence<\/a>\u00a0to \u201cuse it at significantly greater scale \u2026 nor does it consistently give the public the confidence that it will be used responsibly\u201d.<\/p>\n

It added that the current rules governing police LFR use are \u201ccomplicated and difficult to understand\u201d, and that an ordinary member of the public would be required to read four pieces of legislation, police national guidance documents and a range of detailed legal or data protection documentation from individual forces to fully understand the basis for LFR use on their high streets.<\/p>\n

While the use of LFR by police \u2013 beginning with the Met\u2019s deployment at Notting Hill Carnival in August 2016 \u2013 has\u00a0ramped up massively in recent years<\/a>, there has so far been\u00a0minimal public debate<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0consultation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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<\/i>2. UK police forces \u2018supercharging racism\u2019 with predictive policing<\/a><\/h2>\n

UK police forces are \u201csupercharging racism\u201d through their use of automated \u201cpredictive policing\u201d systems, as they are based on profiling people or groups before they have committed a crime, according to a 120-page report published by Amnesty International.<\/p>\n

While proponents claim these systems can help more efficiently direct resources, Amnesty highlighted how predictive policing tools are used to repeatedly target poor and racialised communities, as these groups have historically been \u201cover-policed\u201d and are therefore massively over-represented in police data sets.<\/p>\n

This then creates a negative feedback loop, where these so-called \u201cpredictions\u201d lead to further over-policing of certain groups and areas; reinforcing and exacerbating the pre-existing discrimination as increasing amounts of data are collected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe use of predictive policing tools violates human rights. The evidence that this technology keeps us safe just isn\u2019t there, the evidence that it violates our fundamental rights is clear as day. We are all much more than computer-generated risk scores,\u201d said Sacha Deshmukh, chief executive at Amnesty International UK, adding that these systems are deciding who is a criminal based \u201cpurely\u201d on the colour of their skin or their socio-economic background.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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<\/i>3. MPs propose ban on predictive policing<\/a><\/h2>\n

In June 2025, Green Party MP Si\u00e2n Berry argued in the Commons that \u201cpredictive\u201d policing technologies infringe human rights \u201cat their heart\u201d<\/a> and should be prohibited in the UK, after tabling an amendment to the government\u2019s forthcoming Crime and Policing Bill.<\/p>\n

Highlighting the dangers of using predictive policing technologies to assess the likelihood of individuals or groups committing criminal offences in the future, Berry said that \u201csuch technologies, however cleverly sold, will always need to be built on existing, flawed police data \u2026 That means that communities that have historically been over-policed will be more likely to be identified as being \u2018at risk\u2019 of future criminal behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berry\u2019s amendment would also prohibit the use of certain information by UK police to \u201cpredict\u201d people\u2019s behaviour: \u201cPolice forces in England and Wales shall be prohibited from \u2026 Predicting the occurrence or reoccurrence of an actual or potential criminal offence based on profiling of a natural person or on assessing personality traits and characteristics, including the person\u2019s location, or past criminal behaviour of natural persons or groups of natural persons.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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<\/i>4. Met Police to deploy permanent facial recognition tech in Croydon<\/a><\/h2>\n

In April, the Met Police announced it was planning to install the UK\u2019s first permanent LFR cameras in Croydon, but critics raised concerns that this continues the force\u2019s pattern of deploying the technology in areas where the Black population is much higher than the London average.<\/p>\n

Local councillors also complained that the decision to set up facial recognition cameras permanently has taken place without any community engagement from the force with local residents, echoing situations that have happened in boroughs such as Newham<\/a> and Lewisham<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to data gathered by Green Party London Assembly member Zo\u00eb Garbett, over half of the 180 LFR deployments that took place during 2024 were in areas where the proportion of Black residents is higher than the city\u2019s average, including Lewisham and Haringey.<\/p>\n

While Black people comprise 13.5% of London\u2019s total population, the proportion is much higher in the Met\u2019s deployment areas, with Black people making up 36% of the Haringey population, 34% of the Lewisham population, and 40.1% of the Croydon population.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Met\u2019s decision to roll out facial recognition in areas of London with higher Black populations reinforces the troubling assumption that certain communities \u2026 are more likely to be criminals,\u201d she said, adding that while nearly two million people in total had their faces scanned across the Met\u2019s 2024 deployments, only 804 arrests were made \u2013 a rate of just 0.04%.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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<\/i>5. UK law enforcement data adequacy at risk<\/a><\/h2>\n

In March 2025, Computer Weekly reported<\/a> that proposed reforms to police data protection rules could undermine law enforcement data adequacy with the European Union<\/a>\u00a0(EU).<\/p>\n

During the committee stage of Parliamentary scrutiny, the government\u2019s Data Use and Access Bill (DUAB) \u2013 now an act \u2013 sought to amend the UK\u2019s implementation of the EU\u00a0Law Enforcement Directive<\/a>\u00a0(LED), which is transposed into UK law via the current\u00a0Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018<\/a>\u00a0and represented in Part Three of the DPA, specifically.<\/p>\n

In combination with the current data handling practices of UK law enforcement bodies, the bill\u2019s proposed amendments to Part Three \u2013 which include allowing the routine transfer of data to offshore cloud providers, removing the need for police to log justifications when accessing data, and enabling police and intelligence services to share data outside of the LED rules \u2013 could present a challenge for UK data adequacy.<\/p>\n

In June 2021, the\u00a0European Commission granted \u201cdata adequacy\u201d to the UK<\/a>\u00a0following its exit from the EU, allowing the free flow of personal data to and from the bloc to continue, but\u00a0warned<\/a>\u00a0the decision may yet be revoked if future data protection laws diverge significantly from those in Europe.<\/p>\n

While Computer Weekly\u2019s previous reporting on police hyperscale cloud use has identified\u00a0major problems with the ability of these services to comply with Part Three<\/a>, the government\u2019s DUAB changes are seeking to solve the issue by simply removing the requirements that are not being complied with.<\/p>\n

To circumvent the lack of compliance with these transfer requirements, the government has simply dropped them from the DUAB, meaning policing bodies will no longer be required to assess the suitability of the transfer or report it to the data regulator.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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<\/i>6. Microsoft refuses to divulge data flows to Police Scotland<\/a><\/h2>\n

In August, Computer Weekly reported on documents obtained from the Scottish Police Authority (SPA), which showed that Microsoft is refusing to tell Scottish policing bodies where and how the sensitive law enforcement data uploaded to its cloud services will be processed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Citing \u201ccommercial confidentiality\u201d, the tech giant\u2019s refusal to hand over crucial information about its international data flows to the SPA and Police Scotland means the policing bodies are unable to satisfy the law enforcement-specific data protection rules laid out in Part Three of the Data Protection Act 2018<\/a>\u00a0(DPA18), which places strict limits on the transfer of policing data outside the UK.<\/p>\n

\u201cMS is unable to specify what data originating from SPA will be processed outside the UK for support functions,\u201d said the SPA in a detailed data protection impact assessment (DPIA) created for its use of O365. \u201cTo try and mitigate this risk, SPA asked to see \u2026 [the transfer risk assessments] for the countries used by MS where there is no [data] adequacy. MS declined to provide the assessments.\u201d<\/p>\n

The SPA DPIA also confirms that, on top of refusing to provide key information, Microsoft itself has told the police watchdog it is unable to guarantee the sovereignty of policing data held and processed within its O365 infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Further revelations published by Computer Weekly a month later<\/a> showed that policing data hosted in Microsoft\u2019s hyperscale cloud infrastructure could be processed in more than 100 countries.<\/p>\n

This information was not provided to the policing bodies by Microsoft, and only came to light because of an analysis conducted by independent security consultant Owen Sayers, who identified from the tech giant\u2019s own distributed online documentation that Microsoft personnel or contractors can remotely access the data from 105 different countries, using 148 different sub-processors.<\/p>\n

Although the documentation \u2013 which is buried in non-indexed, difficult-to-find web pages \u2013 has come to light in the context of Computer Weekly investigating police cloud use, the issue of routine data transfers in Microsoft\u2019s cloud architecture affects the whole of the UK government and public sector, which are obliged by the G-Cloud<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Tepas<\/a>\u00a0frameworks to ensure data remains in the UK by default.<\/p>\n

According to multiple data protection litigation experts, the reality of Microsoft\u2019s global data processing here, on top of its failure to meet key Part Three obligations, means data subjects could have grounds to successfully claim compensation from Police Scotland or\u00a0any other force using hyperscale cloud infrastructure<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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<\/i>7. Hungry for data: Inside Europol\u2019s secretive AI programme<\/a><\/h2>\n

In November 2025, freelance journalists Apostolis Fotiadis, Giacomo Zandonini and Lud\u011bk Stavinoha published an extensive investigation into how the EU\u2019s law enforcement agency has been quietly amassing data<\/a> to feed an ambitious-but-secretive AI development programme.<\/p>\n

Based on internal documents obtained from Europol, and analysed by data protection and AI experts, the investigation raised serious questions about the implications of the agency\u2019s AI programme for people\u2019s privacy across the bloc.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It also raised questions about the impact of integrating automated technologies into everyday policing across Europe without adequate oversight.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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<\/i>8. Essex Police discloses \u2018incoherent\u2019 facial recognition assessment<\/a><\/h2>\n

In May 2025, Computer Weekly reported on an equality impact assessment that Essex Police had created for its use of live facial recognition<\/a>, but the document itself \u2013 obtained under Freedom of Information rules by privacy group Big Brother Watch and shared exclusively with Computer Weekly \u2013 was plagued with inconsistencies and poor methodology.<\/p>\n

The campaigners told Computer Weekly that, given the issues with the document, the force had likely failed to fulfil its public sector equality duty (PSED) to consider how its policies and practices could be discriminatory.<\/p>\n

They also highlighted how the force is relying on false comparisons to other algorithms and \u201cparroting misleading claims\u201d from the supplier about the LFR system\u2019s lack of bias.<\/p>\n

Other experts noted the assessment was \u201cclearly inadequate\u201d, failed to look at the systemic equalities impacts of the technology, and relied exclusively on testing of entirely different software algorithms used by other police forces trained on different populations to justify its conclusions.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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<\/i>9. UK equality watchdog: Met Police facial recognition unlawful<\/a><\/h2>\n

After being granted permission to intervene in a judicial review of the Met\u2019s LFR use \u2013 brought by anti-knife campaigner Shaun Thompson, wrongly stopped by officers after a false LFR identification \u2013 the UK\u2019s equality watchdog said the forces\u2019 use of the tech is unlawful<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Highlighting how the Met is failing to meet key legal standards with its deployments \u2013 particularly around Articles 8 (right to privacy), 10 (freedom of expression) and 11 (freedom of assembly and association) of the European Convention on Human Rights \u2013 the UK\u2019s the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said LFR should only be used where necessary, proportionate and constrained by appropriate safeguards.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that the Metropolitan Police\u2019s current policy falls short of this standard,\u201d said EHRC chief John Kirkpatrick.<\/p>\n

The EHRC further highlighted how, when used on a large scale,\u00a0even low-error rates<\/a>\u00a0can affect a significant number of people by brining unnecessary and unwanted police attention, and warned that its use at protests could have a \u201cchilling effect\u201d on people\u2019s freedom of expression and assembly.<\/p>\n

Senior police officers from both the Met and South Wales Police have previously argued<\/a>\u00a0that a major benefit of facial-recognition technology is its \u201cdeterrence effect.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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<\/i>10. Police facial recognition trials show little evidence of benefits<\/a><\/h2>\n

A\u00a0comparative study of LFR trials by law enforcement agencies in London, Wales, Berlin and Nice<\/a> found that although \u201cin-the-wild\u201d testing is an important opportunity to collect information about how AI-based systems like LFR perform in real-world deployment environments, the police trials conducted so far<\/a> have failed to take into account the\u00a0socio-technical impacts<\/a>\u00a0of the systems in use, or to generate clear evidence of the operational benefits.<\/p>\n

Highlighting how real-world testing of LFR systems by UK and European police is a largely ungoverned \u201cWild West\u201d, the authors expressed concern that \u201csuch tests will be little more than \u2018show trials\u2019 \u2013 public performances used to legitimise the use of powerful and invasive digital technologies in support of controversial political agendas for which public debate and deliberation is lacking<\/a>, while deepening governmental reliance on commercially developed technologies which\u00a0fall far short of the legal and constitutional standards<\/a>\u00a0which public authorities are required to uphold\u201d.<\/p>\n

Given the scope for interference with people\u2019s rights, the authors \u2013 Karen Yeung, an interdisciplinary professorial fellow in law, ethics and informatics at Birmingham Law School, and Wenlong Li, a research professor at Guanghua Law School, Zhejiang University \u2013 said that evidence of the technology\u2019s effectiveness in producing its desired benefits \u201cmust pass an exceptionally high threshold\u201d if police want to justify its use.<\/p>\n

They added that without a rigorous and full accounting of the technology\u2019s effects \u2013 which is currently not taking place in either the UK or Europe \u2013 it could lead to the \u201cincremental and insidious removal\u201d of the conditions that underpin our rights and freedoms.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Randy Lupo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2025, Computer Weekly\u2019s police technology coverage focused extensively on developments in the use of data-driven technologies such as facial recognition and predictive policing. This included stories on the Met\u2019s decision to deploy permanent live facial recognition (LFR) cameras in Croydon and the Home Office launching a formal consultation on laws to regulate its use<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":882057,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[294,46],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-882056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-police","8":"category-technology"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=882056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}