Dr Lachlan Urquhart part of Swedish Research Council project on privacy and AI policing

Dr Lachlan Urquhart, Senior Lecturer in Technology Law and Human-Computer Interaction at Edinburgh Law School, is part of an international team awarded SEK 4.8 million (around £366,00) by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet HS). The team will study how police use of AI surveillance technologies, such as facial recognition, is reshaping privacy in Sweden and the UK.

The three-year project, 'Governing Privacy under Algorithmic Surveillance in Law Enforcement', starts in January 2027. It is led by Dr Marie Eneman (Principal Investigator) of the University of Gothenburg. The team also includes Professor Jan Ljungberg,University of Gothenburg, Dr Diana Miranda, University of Stirling and Dr Urquhart, Edinburgh Law School. Together they bring perspectives from technology law, informatics, criminology and design.

Law enforcement agencies in democratic societies, including Sweden and the UK, are increasingly calling for AI-based surveillance technologies such as facial recognition and predictive analytics. Those calls come with strong expectations that the technologies will make policing more effective and improve safety and security.

The project will examine what this means for privacy and democratic accountability. It will not treat privacy simply as an individual right that technology may infringe. Instead, it will study how privacy is interpreted, constructed, negotiated and governed as algorithmic surveillance becomes embedded in law, technological infrastructure and everyday policing.

Through a comparative study of Sweden and the UK, the team will explore how different regulatory and institutional arrangements shape the governance of algorithmic surveillance. The study will draw on qualitative empirical research carried out in both countries.

The project builds on Dr Urquhart's recently funded Face[Rec] project on live facial recognition. Face[Rec] is examining the governance of live facial recognition with Police Scotland and citizens, using innovative design methods. It is funded by the Scottish Institute for Policing Research 

The project also connects to the work of the Centre for Research into Information, Surveillance and Privacy (CRISP), which Dr Urquhart is a director.