UK’s West Midlands Police admits using false AI info as part of decision to ban Maccabi fans

The head of the UK’s West Midlands Police has admitted that in compiling data ahead of a decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a soccer game last fall, the force used erroneous information on a previous match supplied by AI.

It is not clear to what degree the fake information, on a 2023 match that never took place, contributed to the highly controversial decision to ban the Israeli fans from the Aston Villa game over “public safety concerns.”

“On Friday afternoon I became aware that the erroneous result concerning the [previous] West Ham v Maccabi Tel Aviv match arose as result of a use of Microsoft Co Pilot,” Chief Constable Craig Guildford writes to the Home Affairs Select Committee.

He said he and a deputy had, “up until Friday afternoon, understood that the West Ham match had only been identified through the use of Google… I would like to offer my profound apology to the Committee for this error.”

Guildford has faced growing pressure to resign over the handling of the affair, and Jewish groups have asserted that police “reached a decision first, and then searched for evidence to justify it, apparently influenced by the threat posed by local extremists.”