One of Scotland’s most senior police officers has said the force must “embrace technology” to be efficient, but believes the Scottish public is more reluctant to do so than in England and Wales.
Police Scotland Deputy Chief Constable Bex Smith said Police Scotland (pictured) wants to “strengthen our response to digitally enabled and globally connected crime to target sex offenders, organised criminals and extremists who are radicalising, recruiting, exploiting and abusing our children and bringing illegal drugs and violence to the streets of Scotland”.
Speaking at the Future of Digital Justice and Policing Conference held by Futurescot at the University of Strathclyde, she said Police Scotland has a “positive duty” to use technology in the fight against crime.
She gave the example of the recent extension of bodyworn video to officers in the Edinburgh and Lothians division, which she said takes the force to the halfway point of the national rollout.
She said Police Scotland was “late” in adopting bodyworn video, as it has been used in England and Wales for “many, many years”, but said it is already bringing benefits to the force.
Smith added: “One of the things I will say, in my experience anyway, of policing in Wales and Scotland – I find the Scottish public less supportive of technology than in England and Wales.
“I suppose I would say I find the Scottish people more resistant to tech in policing. And that’s not me being critical, it’s just a difference.
“I think in England and Wales, things are introduced quicker and with less consultation and time.
“I don’t know quite why that is, if that’s something to do with 43 forces doing something once, maybe, and adopting something.
“In Scotland, because we’re kind of on our own in terms of policing, we tend to try things and go through longer processes around consultation. Not bad things, just different.”
“Policing must embrace technology to achieve efficiencies, so that we focus resources on frontline services to communities and provide best value”
She added: “I’m confident that, although we take longer, I think, to roll things out and utilise things, I think that due diligence and that scrutiny is so clear and tight around what we do that we would probably be in a really different position than perhaps some areas of England and Wales.”
Smith told the conference about the use of facial matching technology to retrospectively match against child abuse image databases to identify and safeguard victims.
She said where it would have previously taken three days to analyse 10,000 images, facial matching enables them to be reviewed in an hour.
She said the force is looking at the mass analysis of data from devices seized as part of these investigations to identify those that create and distribute child abuse images.
And said another use of technology being examined is ways to automate open source image analysis for investigations into stolen goods.
Fiona McQueen, Scottish Police Authority chair, also spoke at the conference.
She said technology has a “crucial role to play in preventing and detecting crime” but added that “in Scotland, at times, we do have an aversion to adopting technology”.
She said: “A lot of it is financial, but there appears to be a lack of public confidence in police’s use of technology.”