The UK government is developing a “murder prediction” programme which it hopes can use personal data of those known to the authorities to identify the people most likely to become killers.
Researchers are alleged to be using algorithms to analyse the information of thousands of people, including victims of crime, as they try to identify those at greatest risk of committing serious violent offences.
The scheme was originally called the “homicide prediction project”, but its name has been changed to “sharing data to improve risk assessment”. The Ministry of Justice hopes the project will help boost public safety but campaigners have called it “chilling and dystopian”.
The existence of the project was discovered by the pressure group Statewatch, and some of its workings uncovered through documents obtained by Freedom of Information requests.
Statewatch says data from people not convicted of any criminal offence will be used as part of the project, including personal information about self-harm and details relating to domestic abuse. Officials strongly deny this, insisting only data about people with at least one criminal conviction has been used.
The government says the project is at this stage for research only, but campaigners claim the data used would build bias into the predictions against minority-ethnic and poor people.
The MoJ says the scheme will “review offender characteristics that increase the risk of committing homicide” and “explore alternative and innovative data science techniques to risk assessment of homicide”.
The project would “provide evidence towards improving risk assessment of serious crime, and ultimately contribute to protecting the public via better analysis”, a spokesperson added.
The project, which was commissioned by the prime minister’s office when Rishi Sunak was in power, is using data about crime from various official sources including the Probation Service and data from Greater Manchester police before 2015.
The types of information processed includes names, dates of birth, gender and ethnicity, and a number that identifies people on the police national computer.
Statewatch’s claim that data from innocent people and those who have gone to the police for help will be used is based on a part of the data-sharing agreement between the MoJ and GMP.
A section marked: “type of personal data to be shared” by police with the government includes various types of criminal convictions, but also listed is the age a person first appeared as a victim, including for domestic violence, and the age a person was when they first had contact with police.
Also to be shared – and listed under “special categories of personal data” - are “health markers which are expected to have significant predictive power”, such as data relating to mental health, addiction, suicide and vulnerability, and self-harm, as well as disability.
Sofia Lyall, a researcher for Statewatch, said: “The Ministry of Justice’s attempt to build this murder prediction system is the latest chilling and dystopian example of the government’s intent to develop so-called crime ‘prediction’ systems.
“Time and again, research shows that algorithmic systems for ‘predicting’ crime are inherently flawed.
“This latest model, which uses data from our institutionally racist police and Home Office, will reinforce and magnify the structural discrimination underpinning the criminal legal system.
“Like other systems of its kind, it will code in bias towards racialised and low-income communities. Building an automated tool to profile people as violent criminals is deeply wrong, and using such sensitive data on mental health, addiction and disability is highly intrusive and alarming.”
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “This project is being conducted for research purposes only. It has been designed using existing data held by HM Prison and Probation Service and police forces on convicted offenders to help us better understand the risk of people on probation going on to commit serious violence. A report will be published in due course.”
Officials say the prison and probation service already use risk assessment tools, and this project will see if adding in new data sources, from police and custody data, would improve risk assessment.
