Avon and Somerset Police built a large-scale data collection and algorithmic risk assessment system that included information on nearly half a million residents. Using that data, authorities tried to predict who might commit a crime, become a victim of violence, go missing, or fall into other risk categories. Wired reported this in an investigation.
A database of sensitive information
At the center of the investigation is the Think Family Database, launched in 2016 by Bristol City Council and the police. It contained reports as well as information on housing conditions, mental health, teenage pregnancies, attendance at parenting courses, and access to free school meals.
Officials built machine-learning models on top of that dataset, assigning risk scores to adults and children. According to the journalists, there were at least 23 models, ranging from burglary and court non-attendance forecasts to the likelihood of a person going missing or becoming a victim of domestic violence.
People may not have known their data was used
Wired says it remained unclear for a long time how the police had developed these tools. Activist John Pighram learned about the database only in 2023. The police first refused to say whether his data had been used, and later confirmed it without giving details. He was not told whether he had been assigned a risk score or whether it could have affected his interactions with the authorities.
Models with poor accuracy
According to the magazine, at least two models were later dropped after city council staff deemed them unreliable. They were linked to risks of child sexual and criminal exploitation. Staff complained that vulnerable children who should have been flagged did not appear in the results, while the origin of the scores was opaque.
The police gave Wired data on 13 risk models used from 2017 to 2024. After examining the material, Eticas concluded that many of the models had low accuracy and that a substantial number of people marked as high-risk were flagged incorrectly. One burglary-related model showed accuracy below 10% for more than three years. Police said some models were never deployed and that problematic tools were updated or switched off after specialist review.
Wired also notes that in April 2025, The Guardian reported that the UK Ministry of Justice was working on a “murder prediction” program. Rights advocates called that project dystopian and warned it could discriminate against ethnic minorities and poor people.