‘It’s beyond human scale’: AFP defends use of artificial intelligence to search seized phones and emails | Artificial intelligence (AI)

‘It’s beyond human scale’: AFP defends use of artificial intelligence to search seized phones and emails | Artificial intelligence (AI)

Fighting Crime in the Age of AI: How a Nation’s Police Force is Embracing New Technology

Confronted with a staggering influx of data in their investigations, law enforcement agencies around the world are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence for assistance. For one national police force, the adoption of AI has become less of an option and more of a necessity.

Navigating the Data Deluge

🇦🇺’s law enforcement agencies face an unprecedented challenge: the sheer volume of digital evidence collected during investigations. Investigations regularly involve terabytes of data, a volume that simply overwhelms the capacity of human analysis alone. This surge in data is driven by multiple factors, including the ubiquity of smartphones, the rise of social media, and the growth of cybercrime.

“We have to lean heavily on AI, and we’re using it across a number of areas,” said Benjamin Lamont, 🇦🇺’s manager for technology strategy and data. He emphasized the pressing need for AI, stating, “It’s beyond human scale.”

AI: A Toolkit for Modern Investigations

The agency is actively exploring a range of AI applications. They are developing custom AI solutions, leveraging partnerships with tech giants like Microsoft, and participating in government-led trials of advanced AI tools. These include:

  • AI-powered translation: Sifting through millions of emails, including a vast trove of Spanish-language correspondence.
  • Video analysis: Processing thousands of hours of video footage to efficiently identify crucial moments and evidence.
  • Data organization and cleanup: Structuring and cleaning enormous datasets to make them more manageable for human analysts.

One particularly demanding project involves analyzing a massive dataset of 10 petabytes (equivalent to 1,024 terabytes). Each individual phone seized during an investigation could contain up to 1 terabyte of potentially relevant data.

Lamont highlights the challenges:

“When we do a warrant at someone’s house now, there’s drawers full of old mobile phones. Now, how do we know that those mobile phones haven’t been used in the commission of an offence? We have to go through them, and then identify those components and see if there was any criminality in there.”

Ethical Concerns and Transparency

The embrace of AI isn’t without its challenges.

Law enforcement agencies like the 🇦🇺 force face significant ethical considerations, including the potential for bias in algorithms and the need to protect individual privacy.

Recognizing these concerns, the agency has prioritized transparency and robust internal oversight.

“We haven’t always got it right,” Lamont admits. He stresses the importance of ongoing improvement: “We’ve had to strengthen our processes internally, and I think this has been really key, because it’s not just a set-and-forget. As technology evolves and as the processes evolve, we have to continually look at how we’re making sure that it’s ethical and responsible. We’ve created a responsible technology committee within the organization to assess emerging technology.”

Lamont emphasizes a crucial point: even with the advancement of AI, human oversight remains paramount. “It’s important for us to discuss our use of AI publicly and ensure that there is always a human in the loop making the decisions formed from the AI use,” he said

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