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5 hours ago
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Campaigners say deletion of an unlawful database known as the “matrix” will destroy vital evidence of discriminatory policing and prevent miscarriages of justice being exposed.
The gangs violence matrix (GVM) operated by the Metropolitan police, which linked individuals to alleged gang membership, is being permanently deleted on 13 February after it was found to be unlawful in 2022.
The campaign group Joint Enterprise Not Guilty By Association (Jengba) believes it is vital that the data is saved, to enable people to discover whether they were targeted by the Met and to uncover potential miscarriages of justice.
“There is no doubt some of those we support will have been on the gang matrix and this will have played a significant role in gaining their convictions,” it says. “These are young people serving life sentences who did not contribute to the death of another person. Although we welcome the dismantling of this database, we need access to it, to ensure those we support are not suffering a life sentence in prison because of it.”
Young people were labelled as gang members based on their friendships and connections, often leading to heightened negative police attention, and increasing the risk of being charged under the joint enterprise doctrine, which allows multiple people to be convicted of a crime even if they did not commit the act themselves.
The most recent figures, from 2022-23, reveal that of the 496 people still on the database, 364 were black (73%), 408 were black, Asian or other minority ethnic (82%) and only 72 were white (15%). They also revealed that 465 (94%) of the people were under 30, and 495 (99.8%) of them were male.
At its peak in 2017, 3,881 people were on the matrix, which was described as part of a “racialised war” on gangs by Amnesty International.
In 2018 an investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office found that the Met had breached data, privacy and equality legislation in relation to its use of the matrix, and found that young black men were being discriminated against.
A successful legal challenge by the organisation Unjust in 2022 found that the database breached the European convention on human rights due to its regulation and operation. As a result, the Met committed to overhauling it, ultimately deciding to dismantle it and to delete all the associated data.
Although the database was decommissioned last February, representations made on behalf of Unjust by Liberty, the human rights organisation, delayed the deletion until 13 February 2025.
The matrix was introduced in 2011 after the London uprisings in response to the police killing of Mark Duggan. Although it was presented as a sophisticated database of intelligence on “gangs” and those involved in gang-related violence, the names were often collated randomly on the basis of unreliable information.
It contains personal information which was shared with third parties such as the Home Office, local authorities, the DWP, housing providers, schools, immigration enforcement and the DVLA. An algorithm was used to provide a “risk score”, which influenced how the police and other agencies interacted with individuals on the database.
In 2018, the Guardian revealed that more than 40% of young people on a matrix list from Haringey, north London, were scored as posing “zero” risk of causing harm. Some were assessed as being much more likely to be victims than offenders.
The Met did not inform people if they were on the matrix, nor was there a mechanism by which a person could appeal against their inclusion, or ask for the data held about them to be reviewed. Those on it could be subject to a wide range of “enforcement actions”, including exclusion from benefits, housing and education, as well as increased stop-and-search. People have only been able to find out whether they are on the database by issuing a subject access request to the Met.
Kim Johnson, the MP for Liverpool Riverside and chair of the all-parliamentary group on miscarriages of justice, has written to the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, asking for an independent body to look after the database while further investigations into its harmful impact are undertaken and so it can continue to be used in individual appeals.
“This illegal police activity deserves state intervention to ensure that historic injustices as a result of this database can be rectified and justice upheld,” she wrote. “A permanent deletion amounts to burning the paper trail.”
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan police said: “Since decommissioning, the Met has received a number of right of access requests and responses have been provided in all cases. Due to the sensitive nature of the information, we do not support GVM personal data being handled by a third party.”
