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Pre-Crime in the UK: Businesses Crowdsource a Watch List (arstechnica.com)
Press2ToContinue writes: In the film Minority Report, people are rounded up by the Precrime police agency before they actually commit the crime. In the movie, this pre-crime information is provided by 'pre-cognition' savants floating in a goopy nutrient bath who can apparently see the future.
Replace those gibbering pre-cog mutants with Facewatch. It's a system that lets retailers, publicans, and restaurateurs share private video footage with the police and each other. It is integrated with real-time face recognition systems, such as NEC's NeoFace. Where previously a member of staff had to keep an eye out for people, on the crowdsourced Facewatch watch list, now the system can automatically tell you if someone on the watch list has just entered the premises. A member of staff can then keep an eye on that person, or ask them politely (or not) to leave.
Better then LA pre_crime where then get you for per Prostitution just for driving down a road.
It's a system that lets retailers, publicans, and restaurateurs share private video footage with the police and each other.
That's not pre-crime. That's sharing video footage of actual behavior.
Casinos has done this forever, and I'd imagine so do large chain grocery, department, and big box stores.
Retailers post pictures on their wall saying "Do no accept checks from this person". It's just a reputation system committed to paper. It's not really a problem, but it's also not something the government (police) should be involved in because government blacklists violate due process rights.
If somebody has a history of shoplifting, keeping an eye on that person when they're in your store seems perfectly sensible to me.
I also have to wonder why half the article was about Minority Report when there are few similarities between pre-crime and this system. In Minority Report arrests were based on information from the future, while this system is based on past information. In Minority Report people were arrested and charged for crimes they had yet to commit, while this system simply gives stores better information on which customers they need to keep an eye on. The differences are so pronounced I fail to see why Minority Report even needed to be mentioned.
So is stealing someone else's goods but I don't hear you whining about that.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Perhaps they could extend it to check for commas, that don't need to be there.
At the bottom of the
I've seen your face, and I have to agree.
Just like how the USA's no-fly list only contains the names of people who are too dangerous to allow on board airplanes, right? It's not like there could be a clerical error that takes years and multiple trials to get fixed due to nobody being willing to admit that they checked the wrong box on a form, after all.
We're already very close to living in a world where everyone is identified and tracked in realtime 24/7/365; you would hurry that process along? Do you enjoy having no privacy whatsoever? Or are you one of 'those' people who has been indoctrinated into believing that 'privacy' is something that only criminals and other wrong-doers seek?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Considering there were hundreds of expenses fraudsters in UK's Houses of Parliament, maybe the politicians should be added to this pre-crime "watch list".
Take Nobody's Word For It.
In my view, it crosses the line when it infringes on your activity. If Facewatch gives you a warning that this person might deserve some scrutiny in case they shoplift, and store owners watch your behavior, but allow you to shop and act normally, that's behind the line. It crosses over the line when the reaction to a warning is to refuse to let you in the door, or escort you out upon entering, particularly when there is no recourse to correct the information.
Even now, businesses could use this kind of information to determine whether or not to offer you a bargain, a deal, a coupon relative to the marked price. For businesses like Safeway (US), that routinely offers price breaks on items that they know you buy or want you to start buying, incorporating Facewatch into the mix could lead toward price discrimination that would be very objectionable.
I know this is a bit nit-picky, but it feels very un-Slashdot-like to not attribute an idea to its origins, which in the case of 'precrime' would be the Philip K. Dick story on which the aforementioned movie is based.
Not to be a dick, but what part of "filing reports with law enforcement." was difficult to grasp exactly? (Happy to improve my English, but you could be a dick cherry picking content to troll with). In the cases you mentioned, the private person can't legally release the videos because it's evidence. (possible != legal) Police agencies can release evidence to the public after criminal proceedings are completed (sometimes prior) because evidence _is_ public property.
As with GP you are conflating private and public property. I gave the example, and I'd be willing to bet that US and UK law on this is the same.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.