Ministry of Justice unveils strategy for safe, secure AI

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has hired a chief AI officer as part of a three-year action plan to deploy artificial intelligence (AI) across the justice system. The action plan includes setting up the Justice AI Unit, an interdisciplinary team comprising experts in AI, ethics, policy, design, operations and change management. 

The plan includes ensuring a secure supply chain for AI software and a set of targeted data initiatives to improve quality, governance, interoperability and infrastructure. Among the key requirements is having a single, consistent ID for each offender, which the MoJ regards as critical to making better-informed decisions across the justice journey.

As an example of the work that has been done so far, the MoJ said it is building a real-time system linking offender data across different agencies. This is based on Splink, an open-source data linking tool developed by MoJ data scientists. Splink applies explainable machine learning to deduplicate records and ensure accuracy. According to the MoJ, this single view will reduce admin burden, support better decision-making, and enable more advanced AI tools to enhance public safety and rehabilitation outcomes. 

“We will embed AI solutions securely and collaboratively across our department and agencies, ensuring we maximise AI’s potential while maintaining public trust and transparency,” said James Timpson, who leads the MoJ’s AI initiative.

MoJ has also set up an AI Steering Group that brings together senior leaders from across the Ministry of Justice, including policy, data, digital, security, people, legal, HM Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS), HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS), risk, and communications, to oversee AI initiatives and manage risks.

The steering group covers ethical, security and operational standards, and also manages the departmental AI risk register. In the AI action plan for justice policy document, Timpson said the steering group would provide a regular forum for reviewing progress and resolving issues

A new AI hub, ai.justice.gov.uk is being established to serve as a central point of engagement. This will be used to provide regular updates on what the MoJ is looking at in terms of AI, covering pilots and scaling. “Where appropriate, we will open source our tools and solutions to promote reuse and collaboration,” it said.

Working with the Alan Turing Institute, the MoJ has developed a publicly accessible AI and Data Science Ethics Framework, which, according to policy paper, offers “a practical toolkit to guide developers, policymakers and decision-makers from inception through to deployment”.

The framework is built around five core principles: sustainability, accountability, fairness, explainability and data responsibility. “These principles underpin our broader AI adoption approach, and we will now scale up the use of this framework, ensuring it is consistently applied by all internal teams working with AI,” the policy paper states.

The MoJ said it places a high priority on privacy and security, and is working with its data protection and cyber security specialists. It added that it would continue to meet and exceed legal and regulatory standards, including compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation, government security requirements, regular privacy audits, robust access controls and staff training.

Recognising that AI models must be monitored, re-trained and improved over time, the MoJ said it is working with HM Treasury and the Department for Science Innovation and Technology on sustainable funding models that support the running costs of digital services over several years.