Exploring algorithmic justice for policing data analytics in the United Kingdom

Privacy rights and related civil liberties in the criminal process are being affected in new ways as digital policing is being shaped by new degrees of data analytics practices. Between 2016 and 2021, a great deal of media attention, pressure from human rights NGOs, academic scrutiny, and regulatory oversight sprang up in relation to policing data analytics practices in the UK. Live facial recognition, offender risk profiling, hotspots policing, crime investigation triage, and mobile device data extraction have all been deemed controversial for different reasons. New forms of accountability have arisen in response: New mechanisms like police data ethics committees, supplemented by soft regulation through codes of practice and the recommendations of numerous reports and studies. This chapter will consider what is known about police data analytics in practice, to determine whether themes of ‘algorithmic justice’ can be discerned in the UK context and what this developing picture means, chiefly, for privacy rights in criminal process terms.