United Kingdom, UK-wide
Home Office
CSAM Detection and Classification (Vigil AI / CAID), supplied by Roke (Vigil AI classifier); Qumodo and Cyan Forensics also credited
OperationalOfficial publicationPAI-ACD4B53A
- Body
- Home Office
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Area
- UK-wide
- Technology
- CSAM Detection and Classification (Vigil AI / CAID)
- Supplier
- Roke (Vigil AI classifier); Qumodo and Cyan Forensics also credited
- Programme
- Child Abuse Image Database (CAID)
- Status
- Operational
In routine use by the named body, on the evidence of a public source. - Stage
- In use now
- Since
- 2014
- Legal basis
- Home Office programme with a published privacy notice; no dedicated statute identified
- Oversight
- None named externally; Home Office CAID team
- Evidence
- Official publication
Police force, government department or public body publication - Source
- GOV.UK CAID privacy notice; Roke white paper; Computer Weekly
- Last checked
- Record code
PAI-ACD4B53A
Notes
CAID is the UK's national hash-matching database of child sexual abuse imagery, live since Dec 2014 and used by all territorial forces, Police Scotland, PSNI and the NCA. The AI layer -- the Vigil AI CAID Classifier, built with Roke -- trains on the CAID corpus to detect previously unseen CSAM, including deepfake CSAM, and grade severity against government categories, going beyond hash-matching's ability to only catch already-known material. Roke describes it as (in the supplier's own words) the first operationally viable classifier able to both detect and grade. Home Office had invested £18.2m by 2019 with a further £1.76m on AI/fast-forensic tools. A May 2024 Home Office market notice signalled a possible move to public cloud hosting, reversing a 2020 legal opinion against cloud hosting for this data; outcome not established. This is the only documented operational police deployment of AI against synthetic/deepfake media found in this research pass.
Recorded for the Home Office, which runs CAID. All UK territorial forces, Police Scotland, the PSNI and the NCA use it.
Other systems used by Home Office
| Deployment | Country | Supplier | Since | Status | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home OfficeANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) | United Kingdom | Leonardo MW Ltd (software) and Redcentric plc (data storage), named as processors in the impact assessment | 2006 | Operational | |
| Home OfficeRetrospective Facial Recognition (PND search) | United Kingdom | Cognitec (FaceVACS-DBScan ID), among others | 2014 | Operational | |
| Home OfficeAI 101 call routing and triage | United KingdomEngland and Wales | Home Office and NPCC with Vodafone Business | 2026 | Trial |