By Gemma Ryall for BBC News
8 April 2017
Artificial intelligence and drones will be key policing tools in the future amid budget and job cuts, Gwent Police's chief constable has said. Jeff Farrar said he foresees every police vehicle carrying a drone in the years to come and for more computers to do jobs "that do not involve emotion". Gwent has had £50m of funding cuts and still needs to make £9m of savings. It has also lost 300 officers since 2011. But Mr Farrar said the force was recruiting again after a jobs freeze. Last year, 120 police officers were taken on, along with cadets and volunteers. This year, 160 officers will be recruited and the force had been "inundated" with applications, he said. But, with more money needed to be saved by 2020, Mr Farrar said police needed to work in different ways to ensure they were as efficient and effective as possible. He said detective work was benefitting from computers. Surveillance work that involves physically following a suspect might take a week - but the same checks can now often be carried out online because people post so much on social media, he said. "The reality is a lot of the job we do, if it doesn't contain emotion then we can probably do it by way of a computer. So a lot of the things that we may be able to do in the future through artificial intelligence might be things that ordinarily would have been done by people."
Mr Farrar pointed out the usefulness of drones in the case of the body of a woman murdered 20 years ago being found at Wentwood Reservoir, near Newport. "We couldn't have done that by foot and conventional means," said Mr Farrar, speaking as Gwent Police celebrated its 50th anniversary. We put a drone up in the air, the drone was right above the scene and I had in my office perfect HD quality pictures of the scene. We could never have done that [without the drone]. I actually think in years to come, and it's not that far off, we will have one of those drones in the back of every police vehicle so we will be able to deploy those all the time."
Earlier this year, Gwent became the second force in Wales after South Wales Police to gain permission from the Civil Aviation Authority to use the drones - or unmanned aircraft - to help search for missing people, tackle anti-social behaviour and other operations. In addition, police officers now have body cams to record incidents and hand-held devices which can quickly carry out checks on vehicles and criminal records. Back at police headquarters in Cwmbran, Mr Farrar has an app he can use to look at any officer's pocket book in real time if he needs any information. But, ultimately, he said computers would never fully replace the role of police officers. "The public still like to see a police officer as it's reassuring."
[Robocop, or Robodrone, coming to a town near you – sooner than you think. Of course using drones for the more mundane aspects of surveillance is pretty obvious. What will probably happen is that the police will use drones to assist in searches and so on and they’ll probably help – at least sometimes. Then drones will become part of normal policing. They’ll cruise the area and automatically alert the human police to activities happening in real-time. They’ll also automatically vector in on any reported criminal activity to give live coverage of any ongoing activity (no doubt competing with Press drones doing exactly the same thing). Finally, closing the loop, we’ll have long life drones circling urban areas (especially known trouble spots) 24-7 looking for anything unusual. Algorithms we spot people ‘acting suspiciously’ and report it to central HQ where a car will be dispatched to investigate and, if the suspicion is confirmed, arrest people before a crime takes place. Subtly the humans will now be acting on instructions from machines to ‘control’ other humans. Don’t you just LOVE the future we’re building for ourselves? Just remind your kids: Wear a hat and never look up; facial recognition programmes and high speed long focus cameras can ID you in seconds.]
Oh, and by the way.... That was my 7,000th post!!!
9 comments:
CyberKitten,
Congratulations on your 7,000th post. That's an incredible number, especially to someone like me who hasn't reached 1000 yet in nine years of blogging.
Your last paragraph is probably the way it will go. It reminds me of the growth of the use of cameras, which although not as great here in the US as it apparently is in the UK, but, no doubt, will get there some day.
Have you seen the TV show, Person of Interest? It's about the surveillance of all of us in the near future.
I've been Blogging for almost 12 years now (wow, that's..... unexpected) and I tend to post quite often so.... It's amazing how quickly things rack up. Most of it is just reposts of things I find interesting (mostly from Google images) but I do try to throw in some personal comments from time to time. It'll take me a little while to get to 10,000 but I think it's achievable. If I live that long!!! [lol]
Yup, the UK is the most watched country in the world I think if you calculate camera's per head of population. For example I think my bus in the morning has at least 6 on board! One reason why I wear a hat [grin]. If face recognition technology became ubiquitous I'd honestly wear a mask everywhere!
Oh, when I say 'most watched country' I mean most watched area/population as, of course, the UK is 4 countries and not 1.
Person of Interest, despite occasional and rare grossities, was a first rate tv series; we enjoyed it a lot...
7000!! gosh that's a lot of typing...
and sigh: i wish there was some foresight in the powers that arrange things like drones; in the US, most people would drive ten miles out of their way to avoid a police car: you never know when they'll feel like shooting someone... It's hard to imagine the police state that's on it's way...
Congratulations!
And...boy. Objectively speaking I'm fascinated by the ways 21st century is being continually, dramatically, and unpredictably changed every few years by a novel piece of tech, but as someone who has to live in the 21st century for the next few decades....this stuff worries me. Traffic cameras are bad enough...what's next, drones following cars in high-speed pursuits, maybe shooting something at the wheels?
@ Mudpuddle: I've heard of Person of Interest but never seen any of it (apart from a few trailers). Maybe I need to check it out.
LOTS of posting. Not too much typing though - not my strong suit and with only two fingers!
People (and organisations) don't really think through the implications of technology (good or bad) they just see it as solving an immediate problem or as a way to make money. It's only later - and sometimes much later - that it appears to have been a bad move.
@ Stephen: Thanks! I'm getting a reasonably regular hit count (in the low hundred+ area) so I'm pretty happy with that. No plans to stop anytime soon...
I'm very interested in technology but I'm not one to embrace something just because it's new. If something will enhance my life I'll adopt it. If something is all whizzy but doesn't ad anything then I won't. Simple really - even if my friends do think I'm a Luddite because I refuse to 'keep up'.
I imagine that future cars will be fitted with remote immobilizers or a remote drive function so that the UAV can force the car to the side of the road (with all doors locked) why it waits for a human patrol car to arrive or will be ordered to drive itself to the nearest police station - all the while being monitored by the 'eye in the sky'.
just another circuit for future hackers to short...
Congrats on the milestone? I'm glad you're still posting.
@ Mudpuddle: Indeed. Hackers aren't going anywhere.
@ V V: Thanks... and Thanks!
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