Following Scotland Yard’s deployment of an artificial intelligence surveillance software to uncover wrongdoing, corruption, and crime, hundreds of rogue police officers are in danger of being fired.
In an unprecedented crackdown, Britain’s biggest force discreetly unleashed the AI tool to root out bad behaviour – letting it loose on internal systems which monitor sickness levels, overtime, expenses, entry to buildings and public complaints.
The controversial tool was provided by the US tech company Palantir, which also works for the Israeli military and Donald Trump’s ICE operation.
It found that police had committed grave crimes and corruption, including fraud, sexual assault, and misuse of power for sex.
For years, senior executives have been exploiting Met systems by filing fictitious claims for overtime, tricking systems to obtain more days off, lying about working from home, and concealing their Freemason membership.
Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley is already thinking about the possibility of using comparable AI programs in investigations to identify the most dangerous predators and crime hotspots.
Palantir discovered evidence of cops sexually harassing coworkers and manipulating HR systems to obtain additional compensation during a week-long AI pilot that was conducted without the knowledge of staff or officers.
As a consequence, 100 are being investigated for gross misconduct, and 615 have received warning notices. Of those cases, 598 concern the abuse of the IT shift system for officers’ personal or financial gain.
About 42 senior officers from chief inspector to chief superintendent rank face losing their positions after lying about being in the office when they were working from home in breach of Met guidelines, which state they must be in the office at least 80 per cent of their time.
There are also 12 officers facing gross misconduct proceedings for not declaring that they are Freemasons, and an additional 30 officers are still under suspicion. Three officers have been suspended and two arrested for abusing their position.
Red flags were raised about another 30 officers for ‘suspicious behaviour’, but the force says that is ‘currently uncorroborated’.
To identify the offenders, the AI technology examined years’ worth of internal data.
Following the Charing Cross affair, when racist and sexist policemen were seen on camera by BBC Panorama, Sir Mark commissioned the initiative.
Since he took on the UK’s top policing job in 2022, 1,500 officers have been sacked, but Sir Mark believed AI could unearth bad conduct that had not previously been spotted.
This is a brilliant idea, now can we set it loose on the House of Commons! They won’t do that, though; they will just root it out on everybody else instead, but I believe that this AI programme should be used to spy on all politicians and White Hall civil servants so that we can catch up with all their fraud, blackmail, bribes and general dishonest and unethical conduct because it doesn’t seem like our politicians are not representing the interests of this country or its people, and I believe that AI would demonstrate this beyond reasonable doubt.
Most of the police that I see these days, on our streets and in the media, look incapable of even tackling anything other than a fish supper.
The only problem I can see is this: who will set the parameters of what is to be deemed as ‘bad behaviour’
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 