An ethics panel questioned West Midlands Police over their use of artificial intelligence weeks before the force included an AI-generated fictitious match in an intelligence report used to justify banning Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending a match in Birmingham. Senior officers later falsely told MPs that no AI had been used.
WMP made use of Microsoft’s AI tool, Co-Pilot, while it gathered evidence for the report that led to the decision to prohibit Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from entering Villa Park stadium to watch their team play Aston Villa in November.
In January, the then chief constable of WMP, Craig Guildford, was forced to apologise after wrongly telling MPs that the force had not utilised AI when compiling the intelligence report that helped to justify the ban, which referenced a non-existent fixture between Maccabi Tel Aviv and West Ham.
Now, the JC can reveal that WMP were asked by an ethics panel about the proper use of AI a full month before a decision was made on October 16 to use the digital technology in the report justifying the Maccabi fan ban.
During a session with the WMP and crime commissioner ethics panel – an independent committee – on September 17, a representative from the force was asked: “how WMP’s access to Microsoft Co-Pilot and [Microsoft app suite] 365 will be handled, specifically if any training will be offered to the officers.”
Matt Welsted, WMP assistant chief constable, replied that “a policy has already been written to dictate access to Co-Pilot as well as its permissible uses,” minutes of the meeting state.
The minutes continue: “The presenter [Welsted] also explains a training analysis process is currently in the works but warns that to train all officers would likely be very expensive. The presenter concludes that frontline officers will not receive the tool due to cost, it will be reserved for office-based support staff as they will make more use of it.”
Appearing in front of the Home Affairs Select Committee in December, senior officers admitted the report that led to the decision to shut out Maccabi fans from the Villa game had referred to the fictitious West Ham match, but denied that the error was the result of what is known as a “hallucination” by AI technology.
WMP’s denial of the use of AI in the report continued at their second grilling by MPs in January, but Guildford – who subsequently announced his retirement after coming under intense pressure to resign over the matter – later said in a letter to the committee’s chair Dame Karen Bradley that he had since become “aware that the erroneous result concerning the West Ham v Maccabi Tel Aviv match arose as result of a use of Microsoft Co Pilot.”
He then offered a “profound apology” on the force’s behalf.
Guildford continued: “I had understood and been advised that the match had been identified by way of a Google search in preparation for attending HAC [Home Affairs Committee]. My belief that this was the case was honestly held and there was no intention to mislead the Committee.”
Commenting on the latest revelation, Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, told the JC: “West Midlands Police cannot brush this off as a technical issue or hide behind process. An intelligence report that helped drive a major public order decision was flawed, unverified, and now appears to have been partly generated by AI.
“What makes this worse is that Parliament was not told the truth at the time. That goes to the heart of trust between the police and democratic scrutiny.
He continued: “If police forces are cutting corners on intelligence, then closing ranks when challenged, that is not acceptable. West Midlands Police should be answering these questions now.”
When contacted for comment, West Midlands Police did not say why, given discussions over appropriate levels of training at the ethics panel, Co-Pilot was used in the erroneous intelligence report.
They also did not elaborate on why senior officers initially denied the use of Co-Pilot to MPs and why the information gathered by the new technology was not double-checked prior to being included in the report.
A spokesperson for the force cited an ongoing investigation by the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC), saying it would not be appropriate to comment.
The IOPC’s independent investigation, announced last month, will examine the role played by WMP officers and staff in the decision to ban Maccabi fans. It will also look at the use of AI by the force after receiving “a voluntary conduct referral from West Midlands Police relating to one senior police officer and a staff member over the force’s use of AI.”
The JC first questioned WMP’s rationale for banning Maccabi fans after obtaining official Dutch reports that contradicted the force’s portrayal of events in Amsterdam involving fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Guildford’s early retirement was announced days after Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, declared that she did not have confidence in him after a “damning” report by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary Sir Andy Cooke, which characterised WMP’s approach to the fixture as one of “confirmation bias”, and stated the force “overstated the threat posed by the Maccabi fans, while understating the risk that posed to the Israeli fans”.
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