By Ruth Halkon

Digital technologies have moved rapidly from novelty to normality. Now a routine feature of everyday life, smart doorbells, journey cameras, mobile phones, wearable devices and connected home technologies are
changing how evidence is generated, captured and shared. Our new report, launched at the Emergency Services Tech Show in Birmingham, argues that this shift should be understood as more than a technological development. Rather, it represents a new form of public participation in policing. Citizens have long contributed to public safety through witness reporting, Neighbourhood Watch and Community Speedwatch. What is different today is their growing ability to provide digital evidence of events as they happen. Digital citizen evidence gives public participation a scale, permanence and immediacy that previous forms of engagement could not achieve, creating both opportunities and challenges for policing.

The scale of this shift is already significant. A nationally representative YouGov survey commissioned for this report found that half of adults (50 per cent) own and regularly use at least one technology capable of generating digital evidence, while nearly one in three (31 per cent) own and regularly use a smart doorbell camera. Public attitudes towards these technologies are also broadly positive: 69 per cent of adults believe smart doorbells improve their personal safety and security, while 58 per cent believe journey cameras improve personal safety on the roads. Crucially, the public appear willing to use these technologies in support of public safety. Three quarters (75 per cent) say they would be likely to share footage of suspicious activity outside their home, while nearly three quarters (73 per cent) would share footage of dangerous driving. Even where incidents do not affect them directly, many citizens appear willing to contribute evidence when they believe it could help make their communities safer.

Citizens are already generating and sharing digital evidence at scale. Policing now needs the capacity, governance and public trust required to receive, assess and respond to that evidence effectively. When
people submit evidence and can see that it has been reviewed, acknowledged or acted upon, participation is reinforced. When evidence appears to disappear into a black hole, confidence can be undermined
and future participation discouraged. Realizing the benefits of digital citizen evidence will depend on
appropriate safeguards and governance. Questions about how evidence is collected, retained, shared and used are central to maintaining public trust. If citizens are concerned that their information is being used
inappropriately, retained unnecessarily or handled without sufficient transparency, there is a risk of creating a chilling effect that discourages participation and weakens confidence in policing.

The report concludes that technology and evidence-submission portals, while important, are only part of the solution. Equal attention must be given to the principles, processes and governance arrangements that
determine how citizen-generated evidence is received, assessed, and acted on. To support this, we propose ten principles for the effective, proportionate and trusted use of digital citizen evidence. Digital citizen evidence is already here. The public are willing to participate. The challenge now is whether policing can create the systems, standards and safeguards needed to ensure that participation strengthens both public safety and public confidence.

By Ian T. Adams, Kyle McLean, Geoffrey P. Alpert

Police body-worn cameras (BWCs) generate extensive video data on officer behavior, yet resource constraints mean that only a fraction of this footage is ever reviewed. Recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) present an opportunity to automate these reviews, potentially influencing police conduct. We evaluate the impact of AI-led auditing in two pre-registered, randomized controlled trials conducted within two large US police agencies. The findings are mixed but positive: In a department operating under a consent decree, officers exhibited significant reductions in substandard professionalism, whereas in an agency without external oversight, officers increased the frequency of highly professional interactions. These results show that AI auditing of BWC footage can influence officer behavior, with its effects shaped by organizational and institutional contexts.

By Elini Manis, et al.

In this report, S.T.O.P. details how family surveillance apps transfer surveillance used for probation and parole to familial contexts, enabling abusive parents and intimate partners. Courts have even opportunistically used Life360, one family surveillance app, to enforce probation. The report calls on regulators to reign in family surveillance apps based on federal and state wiretap laws, and demands developers prioritize user safety if they refuse to pull the apps entirely.

Key Findings Include:

• Family surveillance apps like Life360 repurpose the surveillance typically used to enforce probation and parole. In fact, some courts use Life360 in lieu of apps branded as probation or parole tools.

• Family surveillance apps frequently function as stalkerware, enabling abusers to track their targets anywhere they go. These apps can enable abusive parents, intimate partner violence, and other crimes.

• Most family surveillance apps track more data than needed to serve their core functions, compounding safety risks for tracked individuals.

• Short of pulling family surveillance apps entirely, developers should implement anti-abusability measures recommended by advocates for survivors of domestic abuse.

By Corinne Worthington, et al.

In this report, S.T.O.P. details the NYPD Domain Awareness System’s unparalleled invasion of New Yorkers’ privacy rights. Formed through a public-private partnership with Microsoft, the DAS is an opaque surveillance command center that collects data from tens of thousands of camera feeds, license plate readers, radiological sensors, and other spyware for real-time, warrantless surveillance of New Yorkers across the city. The report uses the NYPD’s own public statements to detail the scope of surveillance systems that monitor New Yorkers every day.

Key Findings Include:

• The New York City Police Department’s Domain Awareness System (“DAS”) links citywide camera networks, license plate readers, drone and helicopter feeds, ShotSpotter gunshot alerts, 911 and 311 call records, and countless police records, law enforcement databases, and data streams into a single surveillance network.

•  Part sensor network, part search engine, the DAS is the backbone of the NYPD’s surveillance program. Every NYPD officer has unfettered access to DAS data on their smartphone, allowing them to use and misuse this information for nearly any purpose.

• DAS surveillance drives discriminatory stops and arrests of BIPOC and Muslim New Yorkers by giving officers access to illegal and prejudicial information.

•  The NYPD has expanded the DAS rapidly without oversight and ignored court-mandated reforms.

By John Woodhouse

What is the law in England and Wales and Northern Ireland? It is an offence to possess an extreme pornographic image in England and Wales and Northern Ireland under section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. An “extreme pornographic image” is an image which is both pornographic and extreme.2 An image is “pornographic” if it is of “such a nature that it must reasonably be assumed to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal.”3 An image is “extreme” if it is “grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character” and depicts “in an explicit and realistic way” any of the following: • an act which threatens a person's life • an act which results, or is likely to result, in serious injury to a person's anus, breasts or genitals • an act which involves sexual interference with a human corpse • a person performing an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal (whether dead or alive)an act which involves the non-consensual penetration of a person's vagina, anus or mouth by another with the other person's penis, or • an act which involves the non-consensual sexual penetration of a person's vagina or anus by another with a part of the other person's body or anything else The latter two categories of prohibited material were added through section 37 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015. This followed criticism from academics and women’s groups that the 2008 act originally failed to make it an offence to possess “rape pornography”.

By His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary 

This spotlight report highlights how police forces and national bodies must work together to make sure forces can meet the demand faced by online child sexual abuse and exploitation teams and management of sexual offenders and violent offenders teams.

We have reviewed the findings related to the work done by these teams from our 2021/22 and 2023–25 police effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy inspections, and identified where police forces could further improve, as well as examples of good practice and innovation.

We have identified where police forces could further improve, as well as examples of good practice and innovation. And we have identified opportunities for the National Police Chiefs’ Council, College of Policing and the Home Office to work with forces to improve the system. Our report makes 16 recommendations to support this aim.

By The United States Government Accountability Office

Agencies at the federal, state, and local levels have facilities capable of analyzing emerging street drugs—psychoactive substances newly circulating in the drug market. For example, the Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have forensic laboratories that can analyze seized drugs and identify emerging substances. Current laboratory-based technologies can detect and identify emerging street drugs when appropriate methods (protocols) and reference standards are available. Portable technologies can detect drugs at the point of seizure but face accuracy challenges due, in part, to user error. Technology manufacturers told GAO they are developing more lay-friendly user interfaces and operational methods.

From fiscal year 2019 through 2024, the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services awarded a combined total of about $12.5 million in grants for the development of new methods and technologies for analyzing emerging street drugs. New methods and technologies may make laboratory processes more consistent, among other enhancements. Method development can be done on faster timelines than technology development.

While new methods and technologies could enhance some capabilities, forensic scientists face key challenges with analyzing emerging street drugs, including:

• Lack of resources. Laboratories GAO spoke to consistently referenced insufficient staffing and time.

• Unstandardized reporting. According to stakeholders, varying reporting requirements at thestate and local levels can lead to gaps in data.

• Limited information sharing. Law enforcement may not always share up-to-date information about emerging drugs with medical examiners and hospitals.

If these challenges could be addressed, laboratories could be in a better position to meet the nation’s needs for emerging drug analysis. However, GAO is not making recommendations to address these challenges because they are primarily faced by state and local laboratories.

By Katrina Geddes

The “substantial similarity” between a copyrighted work and an unauthorized derivative has formed the bedrock of copyright infringement jurisprudence since the mid-nineteenth century. Recent technological developments, however, are destabilizing these conceptual foundations. In May, the Copyright Office suggested that the use of copyrighted works to train AI models may constitute infringement even if model outputs are not “substantially similar” to model inputs if they nevertheless “dilute the market” for similar works. One month later, Judge Chhabria of the Northern District of California argued that AI outputs do not have to be “substantially similar” to copyrighted training data in order to be infringing. The plaintiff’s incentives are sufficiently harmed, Judge Chhabria argued, when the market is flooded with “similar enough” AI-generated works.

These developments should be read as early warning signs of a disturbing doctrinal shift from “substantial similarity” to a new and dubious threshold for actionable infringement: “substitutive similarity”, where the substitutability of the defendant’s work, rather than the similarity of protected expression, provides the cause of action. This novel theory of harm, if widely adopted, would impose dangerous restrictions on downstream creativity. Any new work that was “similar enough” to existing works would be treated as potentially infringing, despite the absence of substantially similar expression. This would corrupt what is essentially a question of fact – whether the defendant copied “enough” of the plaintiff’s work to constitute unlawful appropriation – with deontic considerations of the wrongfulness of free-riding.

At the same time, artists are understandably rattled by the speed and scale of AI generation. AI models can produce “new” works in the style of established artists in a matter of seconds, dramatically undercutting the market for their work. AI style mimicry makes it difficult for artists to control their personal brands and for consumers to locate authentic works by their favorite artists. Copyright is responsible for protecting artists’ creative incentives, but its legal tests were not designed to handle the scale of imitation enabled by AI.

This Article offers a way out of this jurisprudential morass. Instead of lowering the burden of proof for infringement, Congress should strengthen the attribution rights of existing creators. Low-protectionists have long advocated for attribution rights as a way of protecting authors’ interests without expanding the scope of their economic entitlements. Proper attribution allows creators to capture the full reputational benefits of their labor without stifling downstream creativity. For example, Congress could enact an AI-specific attribution right that requires the disclosure of copyrighted training data in output metadata. This would mitigate the labor-displacing effects of generative AI by directing consumers to the original creators of a popular style or aesthetic.

Generative AI places copyright jurisprudence at a critical crossroads. Indulging Judge Chhabria’s novel theory of harm would effectively inaugurate a new standard for infringement – “substitutive similarity” – that would stifle not just AI innovation but human creativity more broadly. The stakes for protecting free expression through careful guardianship of longstanding doctrine could not be higher. This Article guides readers through this critical inflection point with new terminology for the jurisprudential lexicon as well as practical proposals for reform.