British Police Built a Sprawling Crime-Prediction Machine
British police developed a large-scale crime-prediction system, but an internal review found that some of its results could not be trusted due to issues with data quality and algorithmic reliability.
Background
The article is about the UK's deployment of "predictive policing" — using algorithms to forecast where crimes will happen or who might commit them. The UK's National Data Analytics Solution (NDAS) was one of the most ambitious such systems in the world, pooling records from multiple police forces. A 2023 evaluation found that its predictions were often unreliable, biased, and impossible to verify in practice. This is part of a wider global debate: similar systems in the US (e.g., PredPol, COMPAS) have been criticized for racial bias and lack of transparency. The UK example is notable because of its scale and because it was championed as a more cautious, regulated alternative to US approaches — yet still produced untrustworthy results.