The July 2026 London Data Week introduced me to BLAM UK. Their AI Accountability Project is focused on ensuring that Black communities in the UK understand how AI technologies work, how they are used, and what rights and protections we need as they become more embedded in policing and surveillance.
Key takeaways from BLAM UK’s workshop
- There are no specific laws or regulations governing the use of facial recognition technology in the UK. The police rely on general common law powers to prevent and detect crime.
- In the US, victims of AI biases and harms can turn to and get help from the Algorithmic Justice League. They commit to a response within 72 hours. We need the equivalent here in the UK.
- The big challenge we have with raising awareness in the UK is that people are exhausted and have little bandwidth to engage. People with little time to think and reflect will be ill equipped to resist.
- The claim that there is always a protective “human in the loop” when it comes to AI decision making is questionable. Many insurance companies use AI to determine whether a given medical service will be paid for. In one US case, it was found that the insurance company’s doctors spent on average 1.2 seconds per claim denied which makes a mockery of “human in the loop” – suggests rubber stamping of AI.(TechTonic Justice Report – Inescapable AI The Ways AI Decides How Low Income People Work, Live, Learn, and Survive).
What can victims of AI bias and harm do?
- Facial recognition: Stay calm, note the details, and remember you generally aren’t required to answer extra questions.
- Document harms: safely photo or video the situation and report it to human rights groups such as Liberty or Big Brother Watch.
- File an SAR or FOI: Use Subject Access Requests to see your Data or Freedom of Information requests for general police tech information.
- Challenge false flags: ask for a clear explanation of a match and seek legal advice if wrongly identified.
- Community Escalation: pressure local councils and MPs to create surveillance free zones through collective action.
Key Thinkers & Strategic Guides
Angela Davies: claims policing is intrinsically a form of racial control.
Ruha Benjamin: “New Jim Code” – claims tech encoding racial hierarchies are upholding white supremacy
Griff Ferris: argues that automated policing (specifically automated Number Plate Recognitioncamera) led to the killing of Chris Kabba.
Abeba Birhane : argues that AI mirrors colonial patterns of extraction, classification, and control – data is taken from communities, often without meaningful consent
Further reading
- Big Brother Watch: “Facial Recognition in the UK”
https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/campaigns/stop-facial-recognition/ - RUSI: “Machine Learning Algorithms and Police Decision-Making: Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Challenges”
https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/whitehall-reports/machine-learning-algorithms-and-police-decision-making-legal-ethical-and-regulatory-challenges
StopWatch: “The Gangs Matrix”
https://www.stop-watch.org/what-we-do/campaigns/the-gangs-matrix/