Justice and Home Affairs Committee
Technology Rules? The advent of new technologies in the justice system

1st Report of Session 2021-22 - published 30 March 2022 - HL Paper 180

Contents

Summary

Chapter 1: Introduction

Box 1: Definitions

The rapid deployment of new technologies

Challenges and opportunities

The inquiry and the Committee’s work

Box 2: Previous work

Chapter 2: Legal and institutional frameworks

Rights-based concerns

“A chilling effect”

Box 3: Automated Facial Recognition

The right to a fair trial

Equality

Figure 1: Predictive policing—a vicious circle?

Governance arrangements

Box 4: List of entities and programmes

Figure 2: “Family tree” of relevant governance arrangements

The legislative framework

A reliance on the Courts

Box 5: The Bridges case and the Public Sector Equality Duty

“A fragmented landscape”

Calls for strengthened legal framework

Box 6: The EU Artificial Intelligence Regulation Proposal

A balanced approach

The practicalities

Box 7: Types of legislation

Box 8: The OECD principles for responsible stewardship of trustworthy AI

Guidance

Box 9: Application of the Equality Act 2010

Accountability

Lack of recourse

Moratoria

Chapter 3: Transparency

Transparency matters

A current lack of transparency

A duty of candour

A register of algorithms

Box 10: Previous support for a register

The Algorithmic Transparency Standard

Chapter 4: Human-technology interactions

Achieving interaction

Objective: meaningful interactions

Interactions to date

Explaining the over-reliance

Empowering the human

Training

Guidance

Institutional facilitation

Improving the technology

Designing interfaces

Explainability

Box 11: Counterfactual explanations

Chapter 5: Evaluation and oversight

Societal considerations

Biases

Impact assessments

Community consultation

Technical considerations

“The system will fail”

Box 12: Scientific standards

Scientific evaluations

A lack of evaluations

Box 13: Polygraph testing

Centralised certification

Procurement

Localism

A range of procurement strategies

Dubious selling practices

Procurement guidelines

Continuing oversight

Local ethics committees

The West Midlands Ethics Committee model

Box 14: The West Midlands Police Ethics Committee

A national ethics committee

Summary of conclusions and recommendations

Appendix 1: List of Members and declarations of interest

Appendix 2: List of witnesses

Appendix 3: Call for evidence

Appendix 4: Abbreviations, acronyms and Technical terms

Evidence is published online at https://committees.parliament.uk/work/1272/new-technologies-and-the-application-of-the-law/publications/ and available for inspection at the Parliamentary Archives (020 7219 3074).

Q in footnotes refers to a question in oral evidence.





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