Predictive Policing (855A/22)
Request
I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the following information from West Midlands Police Please may you provide me with the following information:
1.Have any predictive policing systems been used, are currently in use, or are intended to be used by West Midlands Police in the future for the purpose of predictive crime mapping? If yes, please answer the following.
1a. What is the name of the system?
1b. When was the system first used?
1c. How does the system work? What data does it use to make predictions, and how are those predictions made?
1d. What is the cost of using the system?
1e. What guidance/policies does West Midlands Police have to govern the usage of the system?
1f. Please provide data on when the system has been used, and the age, race and gender of those who have had police interactions or arrests as a result of this system.
1g. Please provide any Privacy Impact Assessment, Data Protection Impact Assessment and/or Equality Impact Assessment conducted in relation to this programme. Please provide the dates when these assessments were conducted. If no such assessments were conducted, please state as such.
1h.What testing and/or research has been conducted in order to investigate the potential for bias within the programme, in order to comply with West Midlands Police’s Public Sector Equality Duty under s149 Equality Act 2010?
2.Have any predictive policing systems been used, are currently in use, or are intended to be used by West Midlands Police in the future for the purpose of individual risk assessment?
2a. What is the name of the system?
2b. When was the system first used?
2c. How does the system work? What data does it use to make predictions, and how are those predictions made?
2d. What is the cost of using the system?
2e. What guidance/policies does West Midlands Police have to govern the usage of the system?
2f. How many individuals are currently tracked through the system, their age, race and gender demographics, and whether they have any previous criminal record.
2g. Please provide data on when the system has been used, and the age, race and gender of those who have had police interactions or arrests as a result of this system.
2h. Please provide any Privacy Impact Assessment, Data Protection Impact Assessment and/or Equality Impact Assessment conducted in relation to this programme. Please provide the dates when these assessments were conducted. If no such assessments were conducted, please state as such.
2i. What testing and/or research has been conducted in order to investigate the potential for bias within the programme, in order to comply with West Midlands Police’s Public Sector Equality Duty under s149 Equality Act 2010?
For questions 1f, 2f and 2g please provide the information in the form of a csv file, or similar spreadsheet format.
Response
Please find attached our response.
Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.
The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.
If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.