Making data work across boundaries: The next challenge for policing

UK policing reform plans emphasize improving data interoperability across forces as digital crime expands and existing information remains fragmented among 43 forces, with the planned Law Enforcement Data Service and National Data Integration and Exploitation Service intended to support national standards and access. The piece argues that national integration should not necessarily require centralising all data, warning that large imposed platforms can create dependency, slow innovation, and repeat challenges seen in past public-sector technology programmes. It advocates a decentralised data-mesh approach in which organisations retain ownership and governance of locally held data while authorised users and applications access it through common, secure, open interfaces. The author presents Elastic’s data-service model as a possible foundation for this approach, claiming it could support cross-force investigations, consistent national capabilities, granular access controls, auditability, and AI tools without requiring a single national data store. It also contends that reliable, well-prepared data and shared context are prerequisites for scaling police AI and automation, while noting that implementation should separate data infrastructure from applications, favour open standards, and centralise only where operational needs justify it.

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