Review of emerging technologies in policing: findings and recommendations

2. Methodology

The study methodology consisted of four components:

1. Systematic search and review of the interdisciplinary social science (published) academic research literature focusing on the development, trial, and implementation of emerging technologies in policing practice.

2. Review of the relevant policy-relevant (grey) literature consisting of research reports, practice-based evidence reports and policy reports (published and unpublished) not available through the academic research literature databases.

3. Supplementary systematic search and review of the academic research literature focusing on the trial and implementation of forms of emerging technologies identified in component 1 within the literature focusing on the health care and children and families’ sectors.

4. Legal searches identifying primary sources (case law and legislation) and secondary sources (academic commentary).

Each of these components will be discussed in turn in the following sub-sections.

2.1: Component 1: Systematic Review of the Interdisciplinary Social Science Research Literature focusing on the Development, Trial, and Implementation of Emerging Technologies in Policing Practice.

The first component review of the literature combined systematic and narrative techniques to review the existing academic literature focusing on emerging technologies in policing practice. This allowed the literature search to be conducted in a way that adhered to the key principles of systemic reviewing (Bryman 2012), while simultaneously allowing for subjective evaluation of the literature to determine relevance (Snilsveit et al., 2012) and to identify gaps where future research needs to be undertaken.

2.1.1: Systematic Literature Search

The systematic aspect of the review drew on Bryman’s (2012) approach to conducting a systematic review in the social sciences and was used to conduct database searches of the published academic research literature. First, three academic databases from which to perform keyword searches were identified and which reflected the interdisciplinary nature of the research problem. The databases selected were Web of Science, Scopus, and JSTOR. Key words relevant to the research question were identified to enable keyword searches of the databases to be performed using multiple combinations of keywords.

The searches generated articles of potential relevance to the first research questions, with an initial total of 1052 articles of potential relevance being identified. Further reductions using the methodology outlined below resulted in 143 articles being subjected to detailed review.

1) First, a pre-determined inclusionary /exclusionary criterion was applied to the initial search result.

This resulted in articles published prior to the year 2007 being removed from the sample on the basis that articles 15 years or older can be deemed to be dated given that the focus of this review is on emerging technologies. The decision to include articles up to 15 years old was determined on the basis that it can take up to 15 years for emerging technologies to move from the development, trial, and elementary application stage (research stages) to wider dissemination, embedding and entrenchment (Brey 2012) and that it can take up to 15 years for the potential impacts associated with particular technologies to be fully understood. Additionally, articles that had not been peer-reviewed in scholarly academic journals and those published in languages other than English were also removed. This resulted in 779 abstracts being excluded, bringing the number selected for inclusion and evaluation down to 268.

2) Duplicates in the number of articles were then removed. This brought down the total number to 201.

3) The titles and abstracts of the 201 articles were then scanned for evaluation in terms of their relevance to the key research questions and objectives of the project in a process constituting the first stage of the analysis. Articles which did not specifically focus on emergent technologies per se were removed on the basis that their relevance could not readily ascertained. This brought the total number of articles selected for inclusion down to 146.

4) Finally, given that the information and findings from this study will be drawn upon to develop guidelines for best practice, abstracts where the full article could not be accessed through the University institution were also removed. This is so that only the articles which can readily be drawn upon during subsequent parts of the project were included in the final sample. This brought the final total of the number of articles selected for inclusion down to 143.

2.1.2: Analysis and Coding of the Academic Research Articles

Analysis and coding of the 143 articles included in the final sample was undertaken using qualitative descriptive analysis of each of the abstracts listed in Appendix 2 Part A to identify and code for key themes (Sandelowski 2000). The (inductive) coding process enabled the social and ethical issues associated with each of the different types of emerging technologies explored in the sample literature to be readily identified, along with recommendations for policing practice and future research. In addition, this process also enabled different types of technologies to be categorised into broader classificatory groupings according to their form (electronic databases, biometric identification systems, and surveillance technologies and tracking systems), which was necessary for synthesising the specific recommendations and for undertaking the analysis of the legal literature from which further recommendations could subsequently be drawn.

2.2: Component 2: Review of the Policy-Relevant (grey) Literature

As component 2 consisted of a review of research reports, practice-based evidence reports and policy reports (published and unpublished) which were not available through the academic research literature databases, an abridged version of the Delphi Technique was deployed which involved consultation with members of the wider project team and Advisory Group to obtain access to relevant reports. The Delphi Method is a research technique that involves seeking and drawing on the extensive knowledge, skills, and expertise of academic experts and/or practitioners working on the issue of relevance (Barrett and Heale 2020, Dalkey and Helmer 1963). Given that with policy-relevant literature, publication may not necessarily guarantee the same level of quality control as can be expected by the peer-review process for academic literature published in academic journals (Adams 2016), it was important to seek expert verification that reports obtained for review could be deemed to be of sufficient quality for inclusion. From this, a list of 50 additional sources was produced for inclusion for detailed consideration as to their relevance for the purposes of this study.

Relevance was determined by close reading of the executive summaries or forewords. Thirty of these were deemed relevant for inclusion and subsequent analysis and coding. A list of these sources is provided in Appendix 2 Part B..

Analysis and coding of the 30 documents obtained through the Delphi Method was undertaken in the same way as for the academic research literature, by using qualitative descriptive analysis to identify and code for key social and ethical issues with emerging technologies and particular recommendations made.

The total number of documents comprising both the academic research and policy-relevant literatures selected for inclusion in the final sample was 173.

2.3: Component 3: Supplementary systematic review of the academic research literature focusing on forms of emerging technologies identified in components 1 and 2 within the literature focusing on the health care and children and families’ sectors

In order to determine further recommendations, lessons learnt and examples of good practice in the trialling and adoption of the forms of emerging technologies identified during the systematic review of the literature that may be transferable for their adoption and dissemination within policing practice, a supplementary systematic review of the research literature focusing on the different forms of emerging technologies within the Health and Children and Families sectors was undertaken. For this, a systematic keyword search was performed in the same way as for Component 1. However, owing to time constraints and given that the main focus of this study was on policing practice, selection for further consideration to determine relevance was restricted to the top 30 sources listed according to ‘Relevance’ from the keyword search. Relevance was determined on the basis of scrutiny of the title and abstract. Articles deemed relevant were then coded according to technology type and recommendations/lessons learnt/examples of good practice. Twenty-four articles were selected for inclusion in the final pool of articles for this supplementary review. A list of the sources deemed relevant, and which were reviewed to obtain recommendations from is provided in Appendix 2 Part C.

2.4: Component 4: Legal Searches

Relevant case law and legislation were identified using Westlaw^[1], HUDOC^[2], and LexisLibrary^[3]. Having identified key provisions within the relevant legislation, this was supplemented with the examination of case law that informs the interpretation and application of those legislative provisions. The legal searches reflect the law as at 28 April 2022.

UK Case Law - Appendix 3

International Case Law - Appendix 4

Legislation - Appendix 5

This research process involved:

• Using keyword searches, questions, and themes in the legal database search engines,
• The browsing of legislation overviews and case summaries to determine relevance, and
• Exploring the legislation and case analysis documents, which list significant cases cited as well as secondary sources that reference the relevant legislation/case.
• Focusing on the implications of new emerging technologies in policing through the lens of human rights, the following human rights were identified as presenting significant challenges:
  • Right to a fair trial
  • Right to respect for private and family life, home, and correspondence
  • Right to freedom of assembly and association
  • Right to freedom from discrimination

Given that the nature of the type of technology and its intended purpose will dictate which legal framework is likely to attach, the legal analysis was structured around the three areas of 1) the law of evidence, 2) data protection, and 3) equality and human rights, and their application to the three broad categories of emerging technologies identified in Component 1: electronic databases, biometric identification systems, and electronic surveillance and tracking systems.