Report - Guardian

The LSE Identity Project Report: June 2005 119However, due to recent legislative changes compulsion to carry identity cards isbecoming a redundant polemic: the police now have powers to take fingerprints - evenat the roadside - when the technology is available. 312Effects on the Police: Will Increased Technology Help the Police?According to ACPO:“We have long argued for greater investment in technology and thecase and custody system being developed to allow the police, courtsand the CPS to communicate electronically will have a major impacton efficiency and saving the time of front line police officers. It willalso fundamentally improve the quality of service to the public.” 313There is a false presumption that more technology (and more spending) means betterpolice performance. 314 Indeed, technology may transform policing. However, accordingto research, increases in technology budgets tend to result in a waste of funds becausethe technologies are not used effectively. On occasion, the results are even hazardous topolicing culture.Technology is commonly seen as the holy grail of policing and, as such, the drive ofcurrent mainstream research and policy is to see how to pump more technology intopolice work. Numerous studies have argued that the increased use of technology leadsnaturally to better efficiency, faster response times, better resourcing and organisationof policing, and improved community safety. Such studies lead us to believe that theway forward is to increase the capacity and number of technologies, but this viewignores the complexity of both the police mandate and of technology. Other studieshave pointed to the alienation of police officers, the invasion of privacy, excessivesocial control and excessive mechanization of the process of policing that results froman over-enthusiastic application of new technology.The use of technology can and does alter police interaction with people andenvironments. If a new technology is to have significant effects on the police and theirmandate, then comprehensive and far-sighted research is required before it isintroduced. An uncontrolled change of mandate would be dangerous for society becauseit would distort the commonly agreed balance between freedom and social control.Policing in BritainThe primary mandate of the police in Britain is to uphold order in society. Anydiscussion of the application of advanced technologies must be seen in the light of howthey might unbalance the role police have in upholding this order. This is quite uniqueto the United Kingdom.312 ACPO News, http://www.acpo.police.uk/news/2004/q3/Police_powers.html.313 ‘ACPO RESPONSE TO HOME AFFAIRS SELECT COMMITTEE REPORT’, Association of Chief PoliceOfficers, March 10, 2005.314 ‘Law Enforcement Information Technology: A Managerial, Operational, and Practitioner Guide’, Jim Chu, CRCPress, 2001.