Using AI to fabricate evidence

[CoolHands]

A police officer, that is I’m trying to work out how could AI be used for that ie what could it have been used to do?

https://news.sky.com/story/derbyshire-police-offic...

[SteveScooby]

My guess is putting some basic details in to Co-pilot (or similar) and telling it to turn it in to a full statement.

[CoolHands]

Yes could be.. Perhaps he should get a commendation for innovative use of technology, speeding up the paperwork burden. Input words: burglary, suspect, ran, alley, fell, arrest

And it turns it into a nice statement

I was diligently patrolling the local estate as per the Chiefs instructions, whereupon a came across a wanted burglary suspect whom I recognised from the Chiefs excellent and informative early morning briefings. I gave chase after the suspect ducked down an alleyway and ran away. I caught up to him due to the fact he had fallen over, but was unharmed. I duly arrested him and read him his rights.

Could process more scrotes in a day!

[skyebear]

CoolHands said:

Yes could be.. Perhaps he should get a commendation for innovative use of technology, speeding up the paperwork burden. Input words: burglary, suspect, ran, alley, fell, arrest

And it turns it into a nice statement

I was diligently patrolling the local estate as per the Chiefs instructions, whereupon a came across a wanted burglary suspect whom I recognised from the Chiefs excellent and informative early morning briefings. I gave chase after the suspect ducked down an alleyway and ran away. I caught up to him due to the fact he had fallen over, but was unharmed. I duly arrested him and read him his rights.

Could process more scrotes in a day!

They were caught after someone noticed the spelling and grammar were suspiciously good for a police officer.

[drmike37]

I can’t see that the problem is using AI to write statements. I’ve written statements for the coroner with AI and it’s fine. It’s quite good at turning a stream of consciousness into a coherent report in the right style.
The trick is to check what it’s written very carefully to make sure it is factually correct and you’d be happy reading it under oath.

[vaud]

I don’t think there is an issue with using AI per se (at least for me)

But too many blindly trust the output

It’s good when used as an assistant, but even that needs some training and the user to understand what they are doing.

[Simbu]

AI could be getting used to generate statements from bodycam and dash cam footage and other known data such as GPS and timestamps. That would take a lot of the boilerplate effort out of the admin of producing statements. Then it can be verified by the officer and added to with whatever is pertinent but missing.

The completeness of statements would improve, and the opportunity for mistakes would reduce (allowing for AI hallucinations!).

Referencing about what in a statement is AI generated, and what the source was, would support transparency.

[Craigyp79]

Simbu said:

AI could be getting used to generate statements from bodycam and dash cam footage and other known data such as GPS and timestamps. That would take a lot of the boilerplate effort out of the admin of producing statements. Then it can be verified by the officer and added to with whatever is pertinent but missing.

The completeness of statements would improve, and the opportunity for mistakes would reduce (allowing for AI hallucinations!).

Referencing about what in a statement is AI generated, and what the source was, would support transparency.

Agree, statements should come from what is written in the officer's notebook and using AI for that would be an improvement IMO. I don't write statements very often, but I do have to review official documents regularly, using AI for these is currently forbidden, but if there is a good enough assurance process in place, I don't see why it's an issue.

[Bigends]

It has its uses sifting through data to identify patterns, descriptions, and similarities between incidents maybe but preparing evidential material for court - I dont think so. Preparing statements is bread and butter work for officers - why would they need to use this tech?

[Somewhatfoolish]

If it's "consumer grade" AI then you've no particular guarantees about where the data you're feeding it will end up (both physically and in terms of ending up in datasets for training future models, being read by god knows what engineer or support person, or even potentially state bad actors.

I agree generative AI would be useful for preparing statements but the above needs to be taken into account and it would have to be approved AI.

[Simbu]

Somewhatfoolish said:

If it's "consumer grade" AI then you've no particular guarantees about where the data you're feeding it will end up

It's not. Governments and enterprises use closed systems that ensure data you put in doesn't get leaked outside the organisation, but also the models used don't draw on low quality public data sources. They use curated data sources that reduces the risk of hallucinations. The judiciary are using it now, so I don't see why police can't too.

[Somewhatfoolish]

Simbu said:

Somewhatfoolish said:

If it's "consumer grade" AI then you've no particular guarantees about where the data you're feeding it will end up

It's not. Governments and enterprises use closed systems that ensure data you put in doesn't get leaked outside the organisation, but also the models used don't draw on low quality public data sources. They use curated data sources that reduces the risk of hallucinations. The judiciary are using it now, so I don't see why police can't too.

I'm aware what is available, but we're speculating about what this guy was doing (on very limited information) and it seems perfectly plausible he was copying and pasting stuff into deepseek or something

[paul_c123]

Simbu said:

It's not. Governments and enterprises use closed systems that ensure data you put in doesn't get leaked outside the organisation, but also the models used don't draw on low quality public data sources. They use curated data sources that reduces the risk of hallucinations. The judiciary are using it now, so I don't see why police can't too.

With stunning results.......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehsq_0Cw6e4

[vaud]

Simbu said:

It's not. Governments and enterprises use closed systems that ensure data you put in doesn't get leaked outside the organisation, but also the models used don't draw on low quality public data sources. They use curated data sources that reduces the risk of hallucinations. The judiciary are using it now, so I don't see why police can't too.

Are you saying the the Juiciary are building specialist SLMs? Enterprise protection with the big models (no data leakage) is standard for these. Are they really building their own SLMs?

[Red Devil]

It's not just the police.. The legal profession is using it too and has been taken to task.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/06...
https://www.globallegalpost.com/news/judge-admonis...

Black Belt Barrister's video about a tribunal judgement makes for interesting viewing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI3EmDs0gns

[Derek Smith]

I've known a number of police officers who struggled with writing statements. I met one chap from another force who made CSM at a ridiculously early age who was dyslexic. I would have fought to have him on my shift, and would have suffered significant injuries from other inspectors. At my old nick officers could dictate statements and have them transcribed by civilians, but the Cameron/May swingeing cuts to budgets and particularly the requirement to slash civilian staff meant such economical use of officer time was lost.

Some statements have to be written with care and experience, but the majority are just run of the mill. AI? I don't like its use, but needs must?