Home Office proposes AI tooling to accelerate digital disclosure

The Home Office has accepted key recommendations from an independent review of how digital material submitted to courts can be managed more effectively. London barrister Jonathan Fisher, who specialises in corporate and financial crime, produced the Independent review of disclosure and fraud offences , which was presented to the UK Parliament in March 2025. His review covers a number of areas where the disclosure process for digital material across the criminal justice system has caused bottlenecks. At the time, Fisher noted that the largest investigation case on the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) system has 48 million documents (6.5 Tbytes of data). “With this volume of digital material, it is inconceivable that the totality of unused material generated in the investigation can be accurately reviewed and scheduled by investigating officers manually, in the traditional way,” he said. “It is also a gross waste of resources for investigating officers to spend time on banal and unproductive activity.” Fisher recommended an assessment of safe and ethical use of advanced technology in an open and transparent manner. “As has been the case with many previous technological advancements, the use of technology has the potential to reduce administrative burden and increase accuracy,” he said. “We must have a system that takes a pragmatic approach to disclosure, using ethical, secure and accurate advanced technology to streamline the processing, redaction and scheduling of large volumes of digital material. This will effectively free up resources to focus on the complex aspects of investigation and prosecution rather than arduous administration, increasing the speed of justice for both victims and defendants.” Under the current system, police officers manually process and provide a written summary for every file that could be relevant to an investigation. The new regime proposed by the Home Office will mean that police officers will be able to use technology to identify, sort and compile millions of files that are currently reviewed manually. Graham McNulty, director of the Serious Fraud Office, said: “Modern fraud, bribery and corruption cases involve vast amounts of digital data, and our disclosure regime must keep pace with that reality. I welcome the government’s response to disclosure reform, which marks a positive step forward. “I’m particularly pleased that the government will be exploring opportunities to pilot a new intensive disclosure regime, and look forward to continuing to work with others to bring disclosure practice fully into the digital era.” According to an estimate from the Policing productivity review , officers spent approximately 532,000 hours in 2022/23 undertaking disclosure work and building case files which were later assessed by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) as requiring no further action. PoliceAI, the government-backed initiative launched in June, aims to free up an estimated six-million hours of police time per year by 2028 – equivalent to 3,000 extra officers. Through PoliceAI, the Home Office said it will fund piloting of AI tools that are capable of automatically generating summaries of digital material, which it stated would save investigators countless hours spent carrying out administrative tasks, with a view to scaling across all police forces in 2027. Al Murray, interim director of PoliceAI, said: “The disclosure process is an essential safeguard in our justice system, but the scale of digital evidence involved in modern investigations means we need modern solutions. Used responsibly, AI can help officers and investigators manage vast amounts of material more efficiently, allowing them to spend more time supporting victims, pursuing offenders and exercising the professional judgement that technology can never replace.” Minister for policing and crime prevention Sarah Jones said: “Police officers are wasting thousands of hours trawling through phones, emails, messages, videos and cloud storage because of outdated regulations. By embracing AI and new technology responsibly, we will boost productivity, bring policing into the 21st century and free officers to focus on the frontline.” Read more UK policing stories UK police to upgrade illicit asset recovery system : A new system is being developed by the Police Digital Service and NEC Software Solutions to help manage the recovery of criminal assets, replacing 20-year-old legacy infrastructure. Police facial recognition must be strictly limited: Digital rights groups map out ‘minimum, necessary’ human rights protections to be included in UK government’s upcoming legal framework for police facial recognition.