Metropolitan police documents say the force has been collecting “children’s personal data” from social media as part of a project to carry out “a large-scale profile”.
The Met says the scheme, known as Project Alpha, helps combat serious violence, with intelligence gathered to identify criminals and ensure the removal of videos that glorify stabbings and shootings from platforms like YouTube.
The unit, which includes more than 30 employees and was launched in 2019 with funding from the Home Office, scans social media sites for music videos and other content.
A Met document, seen by the Guardian, says the project “will carry out a large-scale profile”, with men aged 15 to 21 as the focus of the project. After questioning, the force said both were a mistake.
Errors found on a previous anti-gang database helped fuel concerns about the Alpha Project, child privacy, and police focusing on black children for evidence of crime.
Stafford Scott, a veteran community activist, said he feared the project would be part of a continuing assault on black youth. “Young people use social media to magnify their lived experience. It is a projection tool, it cannot be relied upon for detection, ”he said. “It’s race-driven, race-driven and involves racial stereotypes.”
The Met says he looked for the scheme for signs of racial bias in an equality impact assessment and found none.
The Alpha project began in June 2019 and has the support of the Home Office, which has contributed almost £ 5 million. Although very wordy, the new document dated December 2020 offers new details.
It is a data protection impact assessment and includes questions that examine compliance with data protection laws and principles, and answers from program managers. It was first obtained through an application for the Freedom of Information Act of the Point Source research organization.
The document says men aged 15 to 21 will be targeted and promises not to share information about young people without a “convincing” reason.
To the question “will there be systematic monitoring or profiling on a large scale, or in a public place?”, The answer is “yes”, but the rest of the answer is mostly blank.
To the question of “will the project carry out a large-scale profile?”, The Met ticked the “yes” box. The response continues: “Large-scale meaning is not defined in the Data Protection Act 2018. But this may include activities such as the use of existing data to identify [an] individual for operational or review purposes “.
When asked if the project “will process children’s personal data for profiling or automated decision-making … or for marketing purposes …”, police said “yes” and added: ” The project is aimed at reducing serious youth violence and many of those directly or indirectly involved are under the age of 18 “. You have to register a full name and a band affiliation, he says.
In its first statement to the Guardian on the document, the Met said: “The inclusion of the demographic group 15-21 years[s] old was a mistake. Because we don’t do “large-scale profiling,” we can’t provide any demographic groups of people involved in uploading harmful content online. We do not seek to identify personal information about the publishers of the videos, and therefore have limited personal data (mainly only the videos themselves).
When asked why the agents had marked “yes” in a box asking if the project “would carry out a large-scale profile”, the Met added: “Checking the box yes in point 10 of this early answer is incorrect “.
The force refused to give the number or ages of those Alpha looks, or broad criteria, such as whether to suspect a individual.
The paper says the scheme is designed to “combine, compare or compare data from multiple sources” and uses new technologies or “new use of existing technologies.”
He says gangs are responsible for four out of 10 non-domestic and terrorist killings, six out of 10 shootings and one in five non-domestic stabbings when the victim is 25 years of age or younger.
In the document, the police justify their decision not to tell the young people that they are “subject [the] interest of the Alpha Project, as this may affect their behavior and be more offensive ”.
Confidence in the Met was damaged after the information commissioner criticized her for her gang matrix and issued a notice of execution in 2018. The matrix, which lists the alleged gang members and their risk of committing violence or being a victim, she was branded a racist by Amnesty International and then pressured the Met said she had changed her.
Emmanuelle Andrews of the Liberty Human Rights Group said: “This surveillance and monitoring of young people and children is deeply worrying, affecting their right to express themselves and to participate in networks of friendship and community. It can have serious consequences for its future, such as its ability to access housing, education and employment.
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“Met-type police surveillance under the Alpha Project and the gang matrix does not address the causes of serious violence; it only serves to criminalize and harass young people, particularly young people and black children.”
In an interview with the College of Policing, the head of the Alpha Project, PC Michael Railton, praised its benefits. “Once we deciphered the hyperlocal context of the lyrics, the gestures with our hands and the symbolism of the visual content used by aspiring rappers, we identified threats and intervened proactively to prevent the escalation of violence,” he said.
The Met told the information commissioner that Alpha helped identify information about the violence obtained from social media and people who commit crimes, as well as locating the wanted criminals: “The team collects information from ‘code information collected from social media accounts (private and open), websites, and conventional media. They also collect post-event information, such as where incidents related to gangs and comments relevant online.
“The project has so far revealed threats and risks that would not otherwise have been identified by other police methods.”