Select committee: Justice and Home Affairs Committee
Conclusion 17
1st Report - Technology rules? The advent of new technologies in the justice system
Published 30 Mar 2022
Paragraph 98
Justice and Home Affairs Committee New technologies and the application of the law All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
There are no systematic obligations on individual departments, public bodies, and police forces to disclose information on their use of advanced technological solutions. It is impossible for Parliament, press, academia, those responsible for procurement and—importantly—those subject to their use to scrutinise and challenge the use of technological solutions as they cannot know who is using what, for how long, for what purpose, or with what safeguards. This risks undermining trust in the police, the justice system, and the rule of law.
From: Justice and Home Affairs Committee, 1st Report - Technology rules? The advent of new technologies in the justice system, paragraph 98, 30 March 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 23 June 2022 (deadline 30 May 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees that technologies in the justice system must be "safe and ethical" but does not agree to the report's proposals for a new national body, certification system or further central guidance on accountability.
- On a new national oversight body, the government "is not persuaded" by the arguments for it or for a certification system, stating that certification "can also create false confidence and be prohibitively costly".
- On guidance, it "agrees that further guidance on new technologies for the police may help" but says this should be "sector-led with the government's support, not centrally imposed".
- On ethics groups, it "does not agree" that there should be a mandate for them across all forces or that they should be on a statutory footing.
- On the Algorithmic Transparency Standard, it will "continue to pilot and gather feedback" to "explore options" for deploying it more broadly, and is undertaking a review of the AI Governance landscape.