North Yorkshire Police Reassure Public Over New AI Tools

Senior officers at North Yorkshire Police have outlined strict guidelines and safeguards for the force's use of artificial intelligence, including a new tool to rapidly analyse CCTV footage.

Two senior police officers have sought to reassure the public in North Yorkshire over the force's use of artificial intelligence.

Assistant Chief Constable Ben Moseley and Detective Chief Constable Jez Bartley say the new technology will be used in a restricted way, be highly visible to the public, and will primarily help with identifying suspects on CCTV.

The comments were made during an online public meeting on the 13th of July 2026, hosted by the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority Policing, Fire and Crime Team, which focused on facial recognition and the use of artificial intelligence.

Addressing concerns about the reliability and legality of the technology, the senior officers confirmed that strict safeguards have been put in place. Officers have been explicitly banned from using artificial intelligence to create primary evidence, following consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service.

Assistant Chief Constable Moseley said:

"Probably the most important point is we've stipulated to our staff, you cannot use AI in the first-hand creation of evidence. So, for example, you cannot draft a witness statement or amend it or otherwise create it using AI, that's not permitted. And we've given that really clear guidance to our staff in conjunction with the CPS who have helped us helped us craft that guidance making sure it's legitimate. So, that's probably the biggest piece of reassurance we want to give."

When artificial intelligence is utilised in areas that may impact evidence, the force insists that rigid procedures must be followed to maintain accountability and ensure corroboration.

Detective Chief Constable Bartley said:

"Where it's used in an evidential field, then it has to go through some very strict checklists to ensure that what we're using is accountable and we're able to be able to support that with corroborating evidence. It's unlikely at this time that we're using it in evidence, apart from those tools that, like live facial recognition, that are systems in their own right that have been developed by AI, but are then enclosed in their own system with their own safeguards around the providers of those systems and also the national working groups that have looked at the the main outputs of those systems, the logarithms, and the ratios that they're set to."

Despite the restrictions on evidence creation, the force is embracing the technology to save significant time during major investigations, including instances of serious organised crime. A new pilot scheme is currently underway to test how artificial intelligence can rapidly scan vast amounts of video footage to locate specific individuals.

Assistant Chief Constable Moseley added:

"We've procured an AI enabled CCTV analysis tool for a period of 12 months, to support a pilot within our team to investigate, very large quantities of CCTV, usually through major crime but also serious organised crime. So, as an example, if we wanted to now view hundreds of hours of CCTV that's been trawled from the City of York for a crime, where we want footage with a man wearing a white shirt and a black tie to be drawn out, effectively, we can put that into the system. It will take, we think, within about 10 to 15 minutes, to do the equivalent work of trawling hundreds and hundreds of hours of CCTV."

To ensure public trust is maintained during the rollout of these new tools, the police have committed to operating with complete transparency. Every use of the technology will be documented, and officers will be required to explain how the systems reached their conclusions.

Detective Chief Constable Bartley confirmed:

"It does need to be lawful, as you would expect, transparent. So, wherever we use it, it will be blankly obvious that we're using it. We will have it out there making sure that the transparency usage is there and available for all. We must explain what the output is. Therefore, what are the sources that AI tool has taken in order to come to that conclusion, and it needs to be responsible, so that we know that we have all the policies and procedures in place to safe safeguard the output, and part of that will mean that we have someone responsible for either the system or the officer in the case if they are using that for whatever tool or tactic they need."