Select committee: Justice and Home Affairs Committee
Conclusion 37
1st Report - Technology rules? The advent of new technologies in the justice system
Published 30 Mar 2022
Paragraph 218
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)
The Home Office should encourage and facilitate the development of local or regional specialist ethics committees. These committees should be granted independence, a statutory basis, and an independent budget. They should be transparent, and their membership should be diverse. They should scrutinise the use of new technologies by police forces throughout their lifecycle and in their deployment contexts, confirming that their proposed and actual uses are legitimate , necessary, and proportionate. These committees could be given a veto of the deployment of a particular technological solution during a mandatory trial period.
From: Justice and Home Affairs Committee, 1st Report - Technology rules? The advent of new technologies in the justice system, paragraph 218, 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.