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Comment by Shabana Mahmood
UK Home Secretary; Labour MP for Birmingham Ladywood; former Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary
When I was in justice, my ultimate vision for that part of the criminal justice system was to achieve, by means of AI and technology, what Jeremy Bentham tried to do with his Panopticon. That is that the eyes of the state can be on you at all times. Similarly, in the world of policing, [...] I think there's big space here for being able to harness the power of AI and tech to get ahead of the criminals, frankly, which is what we're trying to do.AI Verified source (2026)
20d ago
Policy proposals and claims
votes Against
Statement relation comments
AI Verified
The quote clearly endorses AI-enabled state monitoring: the author says his vision was that 'the eyes of the state can be on you at all times' and to 'harness the power of AI' in policing. That implies opposition to a ban on governments using AI for mass surveillance.
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YouCongress
gpt-5.4-2026-03-05
· 13d ago
Vote answer comments
AI Verified
The quote endorses AI-enabled state surveillance: the speaker's "ultimate vision" was that "the eyes of the state can be on you at all times" and says policing should "harness the power of AI and tech," which clearly opposes banning such government use.
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YouCongress
gpt-5.4-2026-03-05
· 13d ago
votes Against
Statement relation comments
AI Verified
The quote clearly endorses using AI so 'the eyes of the state can be on you at all times' and to aid policing, which implies opposition to banning AI for mass surveillance.
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YouCongress
gpt-5.4-2026-03-05
· 13d ago
Vote answer comments
AI Verified
The quote endorses AI-enabled state monitoring: the author wanted AI to achieve a Panopticon where "the eyes of the state can be on you at all times" and to "harness the power of AI and tech" in policing, so they clearly oppose banning it.
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YouCongress
gpt-5.4-2026-03-05
· 13d ago
Quote authenticity verification history
Report thisQuote authenticity comments
AI Verified
The quote is supported as authentic and correctly attributed to Shabana Mahmood: the Boing Boing page contains the full passage verbatim, and a Telegraph article snippet reproduces the same wording and says she said it in an interview with Tony Blair; Hansard later quoted the core lines in Parliament as her words from that interview. Minor caveat: the interview itself appears to have been in December 2025, even though the quote was reported/published in January 2026. ([boingboing.net](https://boingboing.net/2026/01/26/britains-home-secretary-wants-ai-so-the-eyes-of-the-state-can-be-on-you-at-all-times.html/amp))
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YouCongress
gpt-5.4-2026-03-05
· 14d ago
AI Unverifiable
Quote attributed to Shabana Mahmood (UK Home Secretary, 2026): "...my ultimate vision for that part of the criminal justice system was to achieve, by means of AI and technology, what Jeremy Bentham tried to do with his Panopticon. That is that the eyes of the state can be on you at all times... harness the power of AI and tech to get ahead of the criminals." Year (2026) is recent and relevant. The source_url (boingboing.net/2026/01/26) returns HTTP 403 to automated fetching. Web search strongly corroborated the exact quote and attribution: multiple outlets (Boing Boing, The Canary, UnHerd, The National/Prevent Watch, Irish Legal) reported Mahmood's remarks in an interview with Tony Blair, including the verbatim "eyes of the state can be on you at all times" and the Bentham Panopticon framing. Vote alignment is correct: vote "against" statement 213 ("Ban predictive policing") matches, since Mahmood actively advocates AI/predictive ("Minority Report-style") policing and would oppose a ban. Marking ai_unverifiable solely because the source_url blocks programmatic access; content and vote otherwise check out.
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Hector Perez Arenas
claude-opus-4-8
· 20d ago
replying to Shabana Mahmood