By Annie Estlin, OPCSA
The Office of the Police Chief Scientific Adviser (OPCSA), through GO-Science's co-funding opportunity, commissioned a report to explore emerging science and technology trends for UK policing.
The pace of technological change continues to accelerate. Previously, technologies such as body-worn cameras, number plate recognition and mobile device extraction methods were considered cutting-edge. Now, policing is working to integrate facial recognition, drones and AI-driven analytics into operational practices. What could we expect to emerge next?
The Police Emerging Science and Technology Trends (PESTT) report explores seven science and technology (S&T) trends over three-time horizons. It assesses the implications of these trends, including the potential opportunities for policing and threats from criminal exploitation.
This report aims to raise awareness and improve knowledge and on a number of S&T trends likely to impact policing over the next 1-10+ years. A better understanding of the drivers and technologies underpinning these S&T trends can support policing to exploit key opportunities in the near term, whilst considering the need to remain adaptable to adopt further developments in the longer term. Emerging technologies can also be misused by criminals and policing should consider how best to prepare for such situations. Staying ahead of the curve will help to ensure that UK policing can operate more efficiently, transparently, and effectively.
A range of policing as well as technical experts were involved to assess the trends explored in the report. Whilst this work anticipates how several S&T trends are likely to evolve over time; these are not predictions and there is always a degree of uncertainty which should be kept in mind when reading the report.
This report has been a major milestone in assessing the implications of emerging trends and supports policing in developing proactive approaches to respond accordingly. One of the key challenges faced during the project was the initial selection of S&T topics so the project could focus on assessing implications. In the end, using policing’s S&T strategy, we aligned the topics to each of policing’s seven service lines. Regarding lessons learned, huge amounts of positive feedback was received on the illustrations included in each of the seven S&T chapters. This story telling approach appears to be quite powerful, particularly when communicating to seniors.
OPCSA will continue in its efforts to support policing in preparing for emerging S&T trends and in growing an active community across law enforcement to enhance futures knowledge and understanding. To view the report and the work of the Office of the Police Chief Scientific Adviser more broadly, please visit https://science.police.uk/
If you’re interested in commissioning your own futures project via the Futures Procurement Framework, contact the GO-Science Futures team at futures@go-science.gov.uk for assistance with project scoping and specification development, and advice on the use of the framework alongside other internal government contacts and resources.
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