2.01 Detecting grooming behaviour on social media

Academic team: Prof Harith Alani, Dr Elizabeth Cano, Dr Miriam Fernandez,  
Policing partners: Dorset Police, Avon and Somerset Police, Lancashire Constabulary
Status: Complete

Online paedophile activity has become a major concern in society with the internet widely available to the general population and young people.

This piece of research looked into whether the different stages of online grooming behaviour could be automatically detected. The proposed approach combines Machine Learning (ML) techniques  with existing psychological theories and discourse studies to better encapsulate existing knowledge of online grooming. 

The results of this study demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach for the automatic detection of online grooming stages, opening new possibilities for addressing predator grooming behaviour online, and helping policing organisations to act in a preventive way.

Outputs

TitleOutputs typeLead academicYear
Detecting child grooming behaviour patterns on social mediaExecutive summaryAlani, H2017
Detecting grooming behaviour on social mediaPresentationAlani, H2017
Detecting child grooming behaviour patterns on social mediaFinal reportAlani, H2016

News

Findings from an evaluation of the pilot application of AI for witness statement and report generation

Dr Paul Walley and Dr Helen Glasspoole-Bird have published an evaluation report entitled “An Evaluation of the Pilot Application of Artificial Intelligence to Witness Statement and Report Generation at Hertfordshire Constabulary”.  The work studies the outputs of version 1 of an AI application that takes audio from Rapid Video Response interviews with victims of domestic abuse and converts this into relevant summary documents including MG11 witness statements.

15th May 2025