Police National Computer Overhaul following Major Problems
Back in January of this year, the UK Government revealed that due to a coding error, over 150,000 arrest records were accidentally deleted from the Police National Computer (PNC). In a written statement from policing minister, Kit Malthouse, it was reported that the error caused a loss of 209,550 offence records relating to 112,697 people. This included the entire criminal history of at least 15,000 individuals. The figures released a month after the incident occurred, were described by Labour as ‘catastrophic’.
Following the event, an independent inquiry was launched to investigate why this happened and ways to improve the system for the future. While all the records were fortunately recovered, the fact that such a huge issue was caused by a simple coding error highlighted a wider problem with the PNC. The system itself utilises technology that is increasingly outdated and expensive to maintain, with fewer people able to manage such a system.
The Home Office is now reviving proposals first raised in 2014, known then as the National Law Enforcement Data Programme (NLEDP). The new system, on track for launch in 2023, will be called the Law Enforcement Data (LED) service and will replace both the PNC and the Police National Database (PND). They recently announced a £3million public tender for the project, which has since been awarded to BAE Systems Applied Intelligence Limited.
The LED service is what is known in the tech world as a ‘data lake’. A data lake differs from a traditional database in that it can record data in a raw format from multiple different sources. The key difference is that they are faster, cheaper, and easier to maintain. Thanks to this, Government figures predict that this will save up to £216 million over ten years once it is rolled out nationally.
As with any new technology, there are those that fear there are issues with the proposals. Privacy International (PI), a London-based charity, believe that the new system could lead to privacy violations. The new system hosts far more data in one place than has been accessible previously, including a significant amount of ‘intelligence’ information. The concern here is that materials determined as intelligence data, rather than evidential data, can be misused to the detriment of vulnerable individuals.
This is why PI, and other privacy organisations, have been included in stakeholder meetings held by the Home Office and National College of Policing. Privacy campaigners are keen to understand exactly how authorities will implement safeguards to ensure the new system cannot be abused.
On a positive note, as far as we can see this should improve background screening capabilities in the UK. Although we don’t know anything solid yet, in theory, this should make running DBS Checks far quicker. Currently, each level of DBS Check, goes through a PNC check and, while this is normally quite quick, having a cloud-based data lake should make this stage far quicker than before. This should make a particular difference to organisations processing Basic DBS Checks, as this is the only stage they go through.
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