By Europol. Strategic Group on Technology and Ethics 

Europol was mandated in 2019 by the EU Justice and Home Affairs ministers to create an Innovation Lab to support the law enforcement community in the area of innovation. The Lab aims to identify, promote and develop concrete innovative solutions in support of the EU Member States’ operational work. These will help investigators and analysts to make the most of the opportunities offered by new technology to avoid duplication of work, create synergies and pool resources. The activities of the Lab are directly linked to the strategic priorities as laid out in Europol Strategy 2020+, which states that Europol shall be at the forefront of law enforcement innovation and research. The European Clearing Board for ‘Tools, Methods and Innovations in the field of technical support of operations and investigations’ (EuCB) was launched by the Heads of Europol National Units (HENUs) in their meeting of 5 November 2020. It is composed of Single Points of Contact (SPoCs) from the Europol Innovation Lab, all EU Member States and the four Schengen-associated countries. SPoCs meet regularly in plenary meetings, during which they update each other on innovative projects and tools and decide on new joint collaboration activities. The Strategic Group on Technology and Ethics was founded in 2021 under the umbrella of the EuCB. Currently, the group is composed of representatives from Australia, Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK. One of the objectives of the group has been to create these guidelines ‘Assessing technology in law enforcement: A method for ethical decision-making’ for the benefit of all EuCB members. A method for applying ethics in practical decision-making Digital transformation and technology are vitally important in enhancing order and security but may also pose a threat to fundamental rights and freedoms. This document presents a method for assessing novel technology from a perspective of widely accepted values and principles. The guidelines contain a description of the central values and ethical principles, and give examples in the form of use cases, illustrating how they may be applied in structured decision-making and evaluation, in situations involving new technology in law enforcement. The use cases show how the method can be helpful in forming transparent and understandable arguments for trustworthy decisions about the adoption and use of various types of technology in law enforcement. The values and principles discussed here are also valuable when cooperating European law enforcement authorities are in search of common moral ground in their respective practices. The work of the Strategic Group on Technology and Ethics is based on methods used in clinical ethics committees and insights from value-based practices in policing – in addition to studies of ethical guidelines for technology and a survey of values central to European law enforcement authorities. Part I of the guidelines explains the seven steps of the method, while Part II sets out use cases to illustrate the application of the method in practice. Precautions regarding the use cases It should be noted that the use cases in Part II have not been legally vetted. They serve to illustrate the present method, and although the conclusion of a use case may be that it is ethical to use the technology (under certain conditions), this should NOT be understood as a conclusion concerning its legality. Legal regulation of law enforcement’s use of technology exists on many levels, both nationally and internationally, and it is beyond the mandate and resources of the Strategic Group on Technology and Ethics to perform a legal assessment of each use case scenario. It is a virtue of the present guidelines that they provide for transparency concerning the principles and values taken into consideration by the decision-maker, and ensure that the making of a decision is specific with respect to local, political, social, cultural and economic contexts, and the technology in question. This also implies that the use cases will never merely be copied to a domestic setting. While they may provide guidance and inspiration, the decision-maker is always responsible for producing an original assessment that takes account of the concrete circumstances in the actual situation. Ethics and the law To the members of Europol, it is fundamental that any development and deployment of technology in law enforcement must be lawful. For the purpose of these guidelines, it is thus assumed that, in a concrete case, issues of legality have already been duly addressed according to appropriate procedures. In the field of new technologies in law enforcement, however, the law may sometimes lag behind, leaving grey areas that are open for interpretation. A structured ethical approach, as presented in these guidelines, may shed light on the values and principles involved, and suggest which interpretation is ethically defendable. In the same vein, the present value-based reflective method may play a constructive role in the legislative process, by making visible – and more understandable – the ethical concerns that legislators should take into account when striking the balance between freedom and security in the field of law enforcement. Law enforcement’s development and/or use of new technology also regularly raises issues related to fundamental rights, where law and ethics are closely intertwined and the lines between the two may become blurred. This, too, leaves space for the present method to contribute with new perspectives and enrich our understanding of the issues at stake. A ‘living’ document The intention is to make this a ‘living’ document, that is, a document that captures new technology as well as novel applications of technology already in use. This is provided for by the expansion over time of the collection of use cases, which may integrate further developments in this area on European and national levels. This should also be reflected in Initiatives for training in the use of the method. By its dynamic character the document aims to be a durable resource for law enforcement authorities and policy makers.

Europol 2025. 30p.

By Rick Muir and Felicity O’Connell 

Emily is on the phone to a 999-call handler. She is worried because a man who has been stalking her has been seen by a neighbour in a nearby street. While the call handler is talking to Emily and trying to reassure her, the call is being automatically transcribed into an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can search police databases. When Emily mentions the man’s name and address, the AI software discovers that the man has a firearms licence and alerts the call handler that the police need to get to Emily’s house straight away. Police Constable Tony Williamson1 has come across an elderly woman of British Pakistani heritage seemingly distressed in the street. He asks her if he can help, but she does not speak English. PC Williamson turns on the live translation tool on his mobile device and he asks her again. As she speaks, the woman’s words are translated in real time into his earpiece. She says that she is worried because her son Mohammed did not come home from school. This was three hours ago, and she has been trying to look for him. She says her son has a history of mental health problems and often goes missing. PC Williamson types ‘what’s your son’s name and date of birth?’ into the translation app on his phone and intuitively the keyboard is offered in Urdu. The woman types in the answer. The officer can run an immediate search across police databases for any information about her son. A full profile of her son Mohammed Iqbal1 is generated, including a list of addresses with which he is associated. The officer calls the case in and escorts Mrs Iqbal home while reassuring her that officers are now looking for her son. These are just two examples of the way AI powered technology could enhance the way that the police are able to serve the public. Policing is at its heart a complex information business, but it has struggled to make full use of the data stored on its many often outdated systems. AI could be transformative in policing because it can turn this wealth of data into actionable intelligence at the touch of a button. However, the AI revolution poses a whole set of legal and ethical questions for the police and society. How far should the police go in using AI to keep communities safe? Could these technologies make the police too effective, in that they may be able to know much more about us and pry into our private lives to an unprecedented degree? How can we be assured of the reliability and accuracy of the AI tools being deployed? How do we feel about machines making or guiding decisions as to whether a crime should be investigated, or someone should be charged with a criminal offence? Which policing decisions ought to be reserved for human beings? There are important technical, organisational and cultural questions too. Is the data the police hold ready for the AI revolution? Do police leaders understand the technology they are using? Are there the skills in the police workforce to properly exploit the potential of AI? Is the police service organised in such a way that it can properly make use of these new technologies? In this report we explore these and other questions in the following ways: 1. We set out a brief history of the development of AI and define some of the terms used to describe its different forms. 2. We describe some of the ways in which AI is currently being used by UK policing and explore how it might be used in the future. 3. We identify eight challenges for the more widespread use of AI for policing purposes. 4. We make a number of recommendations for policymakers and police leaders intended to help policing make the most of the AI revolution, while maintaining public trust and confidence and protecting rights and freedoms. The report is based on research undertaken between March and September 2024. This included a review of relevant academic and grey literature, interviews with 18 operational and strategic police leaders, policy makers, industry and civil liberties representatives, and a survey of chief information officers in English and Welsh police forces. 

London: Police Foundation, 2025. 28p.

By Bethan Loftus, Martina Feilzer, Benjamin Goold

The ongoing Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI) is largely a response to a stream of national media scandals that exposed the illegal and unethical behaviour of undercover police officers in two secretive units. The testimony of those who were the targets of undercover operations has further exposed the human costs stemming from the personalised and highly invasive surveillance undertaken by anonymous state agents. In this article, we reflect upon the existing research on covert policing and identify new areas for conceptual and methodological engagement, with a view to better understanding the harms that these secretive operations can generate. Attending to the inherent and inescapable intimacy of covert policing offers a much-needed opportunity to explore the effects of a unique state practice that can radically alter the lives of individual surveillance subjects, and which tests our conventional understandings of the legitimacy and limits of force, coercion, and police power.

The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice Early View April 2024

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By Andrew von Hirsch, David Garland and Alison Wakefield

Situational crime prevention has drawn increasing interest in recent years,yet the debate has looked mainly at whether it 'works' to prevent crime. This volume addresses the ethics of situational crime prevention and also examines the place of situational crime prevention within criminology. The contributors are twelve distinguished criminologists who together advance our understanding of the ethical and societal questions underlying crime prevention.

Hart Publishing, Nov 18, 2000, 230 pages

By National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Facial recognition technology is increasingly used for identity verification and identification, from aiding law enforcement investigations to identifying potential security threats at large venues. However, advances in this technology have outpaced laws and regulations, raising significant concerns related to equity, privacy, and civil liberties. This report explores the current capabilities, future possibilities, and necessary governance for facial recognition technology. Facial Recognition Technology discusses legal, societal, and ethical implications of the technology, and recommends ways that federal agencies and others developing and deploying the technology can mitigate potential harms and enact more comprehensive safeguards.

Washington, DC: Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 2024. 120p.

By Sylvia Tidey

A sympathetic examination of the failure of anti-corruption efforts in contemporary Indonesia. 
Combining ethnographic fieldwork in the city of Kupang with an acute historical sensibility, Sylvia Tidey shows how good governance initiatives paradoxically perpetuate civil service corruption while also facilitating the emergence of new forms of it. Importing critical insights from the anthropology of ethics to the burgeoning anthropology of corruption, Tidey exposes enduring developmentalist fallacies that treat corruption as endemic to non-Western subjects. In practice, it is often indistinguishable from the ethics of care and exchange, as Indonesian civil servants make worthwhile lives for themselves and their families. This book will be a vital text for anthropologists and other social scientists, particularly scholars of global studies, development studies, and Southeast Asia.

Chicago: Hau Books (Distributed by the University of Chicago Press, 2022. 250p.

Edited by Ron Iphofen and Dónal O’Mathúna

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access and freely available to read online. The EU-funded PRO-RES Project aimed to produce a guidance framework that helps to deliver Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). PRO-RES is a Horizon 2020 project coordinated by the European Science Foundation (ESF), involving 14 different partners across Europe. As one of a series of open access products of the Project, Ethical Issues in Covert, Security and Surveillance Research will be placed in the hands of policymakers and their advisors to offer practical and efficient ways to respond to the issues addressed. Understanding that the problem of covert research and surveillance research for security purposes have proven highly challenging for all research ethics appraisal services, the chapters here are valuable resources for expert reviewers, helping further the discussion of these complex ethical issues, and raising the standards applied to the process. Delivering an applied approach, and influencing where it counts, this volume showcases that it is only when the integrity of research is carefully pursued can users of the evidence produced be assured of its value and its ethical credentials.

Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing, 2022. 241p.

By Markus Christen (Author, Editor), Bert Gordijn (Author, Editor), Michele Loi .

This open access book provides the first comprehensive collection of papers that provide an integrative view on cybersecurity. It discusses theories, problems and solutions on the relevant ethical issues involved. This work is sorely needed in a world where cybersecurity has become indispensable to protect trust and confidence in the digital infrastructure whilst respecting fundamental values like equality, fairness, freedom, or privacy. The book has a strong practical focus as it includes case studies outlining ethical issues in cybersecurity and presenting guidelines and other measures to tackle those issues. It is thus not only relevant for academics but also for practitioners in cybersecurity such as providers of security software, governmental CERTs or Chief Security Officers in companies.

The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology Book 21 (2020) 388 pages.