Biometrics Commissioner and Forensic Science Regulator

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Thursday 20th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

It is a great pleasure to appear before you, Dr Huq. I am grateful to you, and I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) and the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) for securing this debate and giving up the chance to commune with their constituents on a one-line-Whip Thursday to consider this important matter.

Before I start, I want to make it clear that, as far as I am concerned, forensics, biometrics and the use of technology in policing—and, indeed, the confluence of all three—has been for the last decade, and will be for the foreseeable future, the most important development in the prevention, detection and prosecution of crime, and represents the possibility of a great leap forward for policing generally, not just in this country but across the world. It is my determination that we should harness the capability that these three strands give us as much as we possibly can within a framework of public trust. All our work at the Home Office, and indeed at the Ministry of Justice, is focused on that key objective.

While there has been criticism during the debate of the system that we currently have—I think my right hon. Friend called it a mixed picture, which is fair—I do not think we should beat ourselves up too much. We see significant results in the courts and detection day in, day out from our ability to wield forensics and biometrics—my right hon. Friend has seen a result in his constituency just recently—and we have some of the best forensic scientists in law enforcement in the world operating in this country, in the private sector and elsewhere.

However, as hon. Members have said, forensic science in particular has faced challenges in recent years. Constrained resources, allied with a huge growth in the volume of sources of evidence, have put a strain on the system, particularly where digital material is concerned. We have taken steps to address that. As I hope Members will know, we are investing £25.5 million this year and a further £25.5 million next year to strengthen forensic services for policing, particularly digital forensics. We have set up the forensic capability network, which is bringing much-needed stability to the commercial market through co-ordination activity. I will get the updated numbers for my right hon. Friend after the debate.

When it comes to quality, Dr Tully did enormous amounts of work in this area previously, with partners, to make sure that there were standards of collection, analysis and presentation of evidence. However, hon. Members are quite right to push for more, and that is why we were so pleased to support the Bill to put the regulator on a statutory footing that recently went through at the second attempt. Although the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) was successful this time, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) had a go in the previous Session, but unfortunately his Bill fell before the end of the Session. It has been a long-term objective of ours to get the regulator on to a statutory footing so that her or his standards are enforceable. We are working closely with the regulator to commence those new powers as quickly as possible. I do not have a date, but we will do it as fast as we can.

There is of course much more to do, which is why we are working closely with the regulator’s office, the Attorney General’s office and other partners to push out the forensic science reform programme, which, as I hope Members will know, is organised around four pillars. The first pillar is police capabilities. It is about ensuring that the police have all the skills they need through the Forensic Capability Network and the Transforming Forensics programme.

We want to ensure that there is proper regulation, hence the Forensic Science Regulator Act, which we think is a major landmark in levelling that playing field. Also, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, currently going through the Lords, strengthens the law to ensure a consistent approach, for example for requesting information from phones and other electronic devices, and it will ensure that in all cases requests to victims and witnesses are necessary, proportionate and made only as a last resort. Guidance on that will appear quite soon.

Among other things, the code of practice will address how information may be obtained using other, less obtrusive means, and how to ensure that agreement is freely given and that the device user’s rights are understood. It is a good example of the way we have to address specific developments in forensics within an overall framework of regulation and public trust. One of our priorities is to ensure that law enforcement has access to all the evidence necessary for its investigations and to put behind bars those criminals who need to be put there, so we will also look at the legal framework for suspects to make sure it stands the test of time, and enables timely, thorough and fair investigations.

The third pillar of our strategy is criminal justice system capabilities. We have developed a model to measure the impact that forensic disciplines can have on the investigation and prosecution of crime throughout the criminal justice system, to make sure that evidence is fairly and properly presented in court and that it is robust and, crucially, presented properly to the court’s practitioners. That strand of work will also increase the transparency of expert witnesses’ credentials and ensure that defendants have equal access to those experts. The Crown Prosecution Service and the Judicial Office, again with other partners, are also helping to oversee and deliver that important strand of work. I would be happy to provide my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells with more information on that, as he requested.

The fourth pillar, of course, is research and development. We want to ensure that we are ahead of the game, particularly on development in forensics, making sure that we direct our research and capabilities towards those strands of work where we believe there will be most value for policing, and to make sure that we are not constantly playing catch-up with new technology, as we perhaps have been in the past. For example, we have work under way to enable crime scene investigators to capture fingerprints digitally at the scene and then transmit them instantly to where they are needed, as well as research into innovative ways to locate and recover microscopic body fluids, advancements in DNA techniques, and the role forensic intelligence plays in high-harm crimes such as county line gangs and drug violence.

In addition, Transforming Forensics and the FCN held a research and innovation festival week in 2021, with significant policing and industry engagement. Guidance for research and development stakeholders to access funding opportunities has been produced, and discussions with UKRI to identify options for future dedicated funding for forensic science needs are ongoing.

Taken with the legislation to give the Forensic Science Regulator those statutory powers, I hope that our reform programme represents a joined-up and concerted effort to address the issues facing forensic science in England and Wales. As I said earlier, we absolutely recognise the critical importance that forensics plays in the criminal justice system, and we will continue to work closely with the sector and other relevant partners to drive progress across these disciplines.

Police use of biometrics, such as DNA and fingerprints, plays a huge part in protecting the public. Last year, DNA linked more than 21,000 people to crimes, including 588 to murders and 491 to rapes. But biometrics are not without their challenges, and a number of hon. Members have referred to the challenge of facial recognition technology. We recognise that we have an overriding responsibility to keep the public safe and, where we can, we should equip the police with the techniques to do that.

We do believe that facial recognition will improve, or has the possibility of improving, public safety very significantly. Generations of police officers have used photographs of people to identify suspects, and more recently CCTV images have been a vital tool in investigations. There are many examples where suspect images have been matched to wanted known individuals, ensuring that they cannot evade justice when they cross force boundaries. What is changing is the ability to use computers to match images with increasing confidence and at speed, as well as to combine technologies such as surveillance cameras and facial recognition to greater effect.

As I hope Members know, live facial recognition trials have produced a significant number of arrests; we are up to 70 now, including for a double count of rape, robbery and violence, false imprisonment, breach of a non-molestation order, and assault on the police. My favourite story is that of the concert by a particular rock band in Cardiff that had been plagued by dippers—pickpockets and others stealing phones and wallets. Just advertising and notifying people that facial recognition was being used at that concert meant that the number of offences fell to zero. Indeed, South Wales police, which has been at the forefront of adopting this technology, produces about 100 identifications a month through retrospective facial recognition, reducing identification time from 14 days sometimes to hours, which is obviously critical when a dangerous criminal is at large.

[Carol Monaghan]

I thank the Minister for his comments. The issue is not the use of these images—I think we all understand the importance of using the images— but their long-term storage. That is where people start having some difficulties.

[Kit Malthouse]

I will come on to that in a moment. I just want to address the question of a legal framework. There is already a comprehensive legal framework around the operation of this technology. As Members will know, it has been tested through the courts. The police have broad common-law powers around the detection and investigation of crimes, including the use of technology, but there are other bits of interlocking legislation that need to be borne in mind.

Obviously, there is PACE—the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984—the Human Rights Act 1998, the Equality Act 2010 and, indeed, data protection legislation, all of which gives a framework in which the police must operate. They are also subject to regulation through the Information Commissioner’s Office on the retention and use of data, and through a range of oversight bodies—happily, some external and some internal. As Members will know, a number of forces have, for example, ethics panels that are looking at the use of this technology. I will point Members who are interested to my appearance last week in front of the House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee, which is looking at exactly this issue—the ethics and regulatory regime around the use of biometrics in particular.

We helped the police to appoint a chief scientific adviser, and forces have access to further support from their own ethics committees, as I said, as well as the Police Digital Service, the College of Policing and others. We have been working with the police to clarify the circumstances in which they can use live facial recognition and the categories of people they can look for, and I am told that the College of Policing will be publishing national guidance soon. That is a word that I have come to love in this job—“soon”, “soonest”, “shortly”.

It is of course an important part of our democratic process that people can raise and debate, including here in Parliament, legitimate concerns about police use of new technologies, and that legal challenges can be made in the courts, as has been referred to. Bridges v. South Wales police is an example.

I know that Members will recognise the importance of the police holding a bank of custody images for the potential identification of suspects and, often, witnesses. However, it is important that the public understand their rights in relation to the biometric data of all kinds that is held on them, and in particular their images. Last year, the National Police Chiefs’ Council established a new working group to develop further guidance on the retention of custody images. Through that group, the Home Office has worked with the police to issue new guidance stressing that people have the right to request deletion of their custody images. The police will communicate that guidance through various means to complement the existing information that is already available online and elsewhere. However, it remains the Government’s ambition to deliver an automatic deletion system for these images. We hope to do that during this Parliament, and I would be happy to supply the Science and Technology Committee with more details when I have them in due course.

[Graham Stringer]

I do not disagree with anything the Minister is saying, but would it not be easier if, when people are taken into the custody suite after an arrest and have their photograph taken, there were a simple sign next to the camera saying, “If you are found not guilty, or you are not guilty or the charge is not sustained, you have the right to have these images deleted”?

[Kit Malthouse]

I certainly think it would be a good idea to provide people with that information at as early an opportunity as we can. Whether they would read a notice on the wall at that moment of particular stress is something that I would have to think about, but it should be possible to provide them with that information as they exit the police station, having been released with no further action. That does not necessarily suppose that they are not going to be subject to further investigation at that point, but they can at least be informed of their right to request the deletion. Whether the police force complies will depend on other factors.

I told the Committee last June that we would make an announcement about further reforms to empower the police to use technologies while maintaining public trust. As I outlined earlier, we believe that a comprehensive legal framework and a range of regulatory and oversight bodies are in place, but we are always seeking improvements. We have already appointed one person to carry out the previously part-time roles of the Biometrics Commissioner and the Surveillance Camera Commissioner to reflect the increasing convergence of those technologies.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport consulted last year on further consolidating biometrics oversight arrangements, recognising that the current arrangements are complex and confusing for the police and public alike, and that they potentially inhibit confident adoption of new technologies. We have also consulted on a power to create a code of practice to set out the principles for police adoption of new technologies, such as biometrics, to ensure greater consistency while maintaining the flexibility to allow the law to keep up with rapidly developing technology. We will respond to that and to the DCMS consultation in the spring.

As I hope I have outlined, the Government recognise right hon. and hon. Members’ aspiration that this should be a critical stream of work for the Home Office, and for policing more generally. We also recognise that there is the possibility to undermine public trust in the use of technology if we do not get the framework of accountability, supervision and regulation correct. For these technologies to be successful, they need to be successful in court, which requires standardisation and quality. We recognise that there are capacity issues that need to be addressed, and we are working with partners to fill those gaps. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells will take comfort, for example, from the fact that the Forensic Capability Network, the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the private sector are, as we speak, working together on a workforce strategy to plug exactly the capability and capacity holes that he identified.

Finally, as I said at the start of my remarks, we believe that the use of forensics, biometrics and technology together, as they converge, presents an enormous prospect for a great leap forwards in our collective safety in this country—not just in the prosecution of crime, but in its prevention. The critical thing to remember about fighting crime is that the greatest deterrent to any crime being committed is the perception by the person who would commit it of their likelihood of being caught. The better we get at catching those people and putting them behind bars, the less likely they are to offend.