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Crime Prediction Software 'Adopted By 14 UK Police Forces' (bbc.com)
At least 14 UK police forces have made use of crime-prediction software or plan to do so, according to Liberty. From a report: The human rights group said [PDF] it had sent a total of 90 Freedom of Information requests out last year to discover which forces used the technology. It believes the programs involved can lead to biased policing strategies that unfairly focus on ethnic minorities and lower-income communities. And it said there had been a "severe lack of transparency" about the matter. Defenders of the technology say it can provide new insights into gun and knife crime, sex trafficking and other potentially life-threatening offences at a time when police budgets are under pressure.
A pool of water with three people in it has been created. Police are looking into it
Nullius in verba
"Past performance is not a guarantee of future returns".
But, in the case of past criminal activity, areas that have a history of high crime are still likely to have high crime in the future.
But saying that, and acting on it, has now become racism, because a lot of high crime area also happen to be areas where minorities live. Increasing patrolling of those areas to help reduce crime have a high chance of finding minority offenders committing crime.
Should the police REDUCE their patrols in those high-crime areas, they'll be accused of racism for not protecting those minorities.
People who live in those areas should be asking themselves what the motives are of the groups trying to stop the police from doing their jobs.
Guilty until proven innocent. Just what every totalitarian government needs to keep whomever they don't like locked up and silent.
So, police forces in the UK are using Chinese technology to further spy on their citizens.
Apparently having a Queen makes you stupid enough to stand for this shit.
Sorry, the old hag is on my money, but she and her clan can die in a fire or fuck the hell off.
They'll never have any actual freedom as long as people believe the bullshit that the royals are somehow special.
Well, first off, UK spying on their citizens isn't anything new. Britain's high streets have been under the eye of cameras for decades now. You almost have to assume if you're outside on a street in Britain that at least one camera is recording you.
As for "real freedom" that's fairly subjective based on what you consider freedom to be. There probably isn't any country in the world that everyone would say is a perfect bastion of freedom- because it's a precarious balance. Some would consider the US to be less free with it's lack of representative vote (electoral system), a political system that is biased towards a two party system, lack of an unbiased media (everything leans one way or the other to a degree), world's highest incarceration rate, lack of egalitarian education or health systems. (wealthy areas have much better schools, and rich people get better care). Lots of "morality laws" based on drugs, alcohol, sexual morality.
As for the Queen, yeah, I'm against her too, or at least her receiving tax payer money. Many will bring up the strawmen of tourists and the Crown Estate as reasons to keep the Queen; as if, making her a private citizen and not receiving public money would stop the tourists coming. And as for the Crown Estate, it is owned by the people of the UK. Government took over responsibility of the Crown Estate in exchange for taking over some of the debts that the royal family had run up. The Crown Estate does not belong to the person wearing the Crown. (The Queen does have substantial wealth and holdings of her own though that are separate to the Crown Estate).
All that said, the Queen has no impact on "Freedom" in the UK. She has very little power to impact the world for reasons of Good or Evil.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
It's all in how it is regulated and how it is used. Like any technology, whether this is a net-positive or a net-negative for the world isn't immediately obvious. I could easily see this being used to persecute minorities OR to genuinely help lessen crime.
Who is going to regulate how the police use this though- and what they can get away with?
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
"It believes the programs involved can lead to biased policing strategies that unfairly focus on ethnic minorities"
IMHO:
What makes them to believe that exactly?
Where/what is their proof/evidence for such thing can really happen?
Also, we all need to keep in mind that, higher crime can really happen in poor neighborhoods, where also ethnic minorities maybe majority!!!
Police need to focus on wherever crime is historically happened more, regardless of ethnic minority situation @ those places!!!
Or, is the police supposed to stay away from wherever ethnic minorities live???
Also, if any software really keep causing false alarms (causing police forces/teams sent to deal w/ innocent people), wouldn't that be noticed very soon?
Do we really think police departments anywhere, really would be okay w/ keep wasting time/effort?
(& Nobody higher up would notice that either?)
They don't need this.... sadly enough.
[($)]
This really reminds me of that movie, the one about crime in the future. I remember it was called "Judge Dredd" and had Stallone in it.
It believes the programs involved can lead to biased policing strategies that unfairly focus on ethnic minorities and lower-income communities.
Policing should be focused on high-crime sections of the community, since that's where it's needed most. It would be absurd to send the police to wealthy low-crime suburbs and have them walking around doing nothing. If the police were to ignore the crime taking place in low-income communities, the ones who suffer most of the people who live in those communities. I know that because I live in one. Where my parents live there are 25 reported crimes within a 1 mile radius in a month, while where I live there are 650 reported crimes within a one mile radius. I want the police here, tackling crime, not scared of coming here because it wouldn't be politically correct to investigate crime in a low-income area because some arseholes in an ivory tower are worried about "human rights."
People like this libertyhumanrights.org.uk are a major part of the problem, and are the reason crime is spiralling out of control. We've got police scared to investigate Muslim rape gangs because they fear being called racists, so young girls are left to be abused. We've got police scared to stop and search black people out of fear of being called racists, so children in back communities are being stabbed on their way to and from school. We've got police scared of tackling crime in low-income areas because that's apparently against the human rights of criminals, so crime is left to go out of control. Meanwhile, what police are investigating is "non-crime hate incidents" where somebody posted a nasty comment on Twitter, because the out-of-touch leaders of the country think that's the priority.
Political correctness is absolutely destroying UK society and things are becoming visibly worse on the streets. The police have become largely irrelevant in many communities, and I don't even waste my time reporting crime to them since I know from past attempts to report serious crime that they will do absolutely nothing. The other day I saw some boys with an air rifle leaned against the wall of a school, shooting it into the school. I ignored it any carried on with my day because I'm well aware that the police are more interested in political correctness and "non-crime hate incidents" than tackling crime. The crime figures here are a fraction of the actual crime rate, but most crime simply goes unreported because the police have become so ineffective it's simply not worth bothering. Sure, if there was a "non-crime hate incident" that's worth reporting as they'll have a van full of officers there in minutes, but if an actual crime is taking place then you're wasting your time.
Policing in the UK urgently needs reforming, but sadly people of influence, like this ibertyhumanrights.org.uk, are more interested in rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks.
The addition of crime prediction software to a system that doesn't currently require evidence of a crime even having occurred to convict is terrifying. The UK system regularly imposes criminal penalties on those simply suspected of being the kind of person to commit a crime - no accusation of a crime needed. This isn't going to help any.
Your next!
Grammar crime.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Why is this downmodded? It has nothing to do with Trump. The Chinese dictatorship is piloting a similar system for the Venezuelan dictatorship.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Its about total control over an area by criminals to sell anything they want and make a profit.
Control over an area to commit crime in.
Criminals get to act the way they do due to a lack of police and poor quality laws.
How to fix UK crime problems.
Bring back the police from "internet" comments speech policing and put them back onto community policing down every street.
Stop and search in any area that has a crime problem to look for tools of crime and stolen items.
Give education the money and support needed to look after people into university, plumbing/electrical jobs, arts, sport, languages, music.
Support the people who will never study, cant study, won't study.
That gives a pathway out of crime to further education, study, work and stops the idea that crime was due to the lack of support.
What to do about crime in the streets?
Understand who is doing the crime with voice prints, smart phone tracking and the use of CCTV in new ways..
Map the crime in every area of the UK. The demographics, the type of crime. Who is doing crime, the support networks, the buying from the criminal, the sale, who is then buying a stolen smart phone.
What ISP they then connect with and "expect" to use a stolen smart phone.
Who is stealing, who is protecting an area, who is selling stolen goods, who is buying stolen goods.
Why local police wont act. Who is holding back police an any area. Laws? Politics? Change out all corrupt virtue signaling and political police structures.
Detect all police who are corrupt and who allowed crime to enter an area. Was it for money? Faith? Politics? Career advancement? A political quota system without looking into every officers past?
Find out why the police are corrupt. Any community connection by corrupt police with criminals over generations?
Test for criminals ability to access and if given police files, advanced notice of police methods and plans. Who in the police are helping criminals every day?
Are police talking to the press, media? Detect all such efforts and alter methods to make such police look like they where always part of a long term undercover police work. Criminals will then trust police who are corrupt less.
Make been corrupt part of a police investigation and a huge risk.
Police advancement should only be on merit. Get some mutual loyalty back into the police and away from direct political control over methods.
Criminals know the average UK police time needed to respond in any area. Change that average time up.
Expect every gov/mil/police officer to be tracked when entering a police station by criminals with their own facial recognition systems.
Stop expecting undercover and long term police work to be secure out of any police stations and gov/mil buildings.
Learn from police methods, SAS, GCHQ, MI5/6, Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch and what was done to and in Ireland and any nation that supported Ireland.
Make UK policing very secret, totally unexpected and very direct again.
More of the same old CCTV will not work. Criminals dont show their face when doing crime and know to change clothing, transport every time.
Tracking crime has to get past the ability to feel secure when doing crime.
A person on a moped using a helmet will not show on CCTV facial tracking.
The vehicle registration plates will be fake, removed from another scooter.
The stolen smart phone will be off, not carried for long.
Gait is the only factor that can be detected. Buy into advanced gait detection software as registration plates and face detection will not work.
Set 100's of undercover police out with tracking/malware smart phones as bait to be stolen. The GUI on the stolen smart phone will allow a power on/off but the tracking will be battery powered and always on.
The criminal will then have to use a faraday cage and never be sure if the device stolen and been sold is tracked. Full of police malware tracking?
Wh
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
That was for Ireland and bank crime.
Getting caught with the tools for a crime on the way to do a crime.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
"Fatal shooting" is not a sufficient description. Circumstances of the "shooting" matter.
Last night I watched the latest episode of Victoria on Masterpiece (PBS, if you didn't know). There was a cholera outbreak in London, and in their 19th century mindset, only 1 person out of several so-called 'experts' actually figured out what the real source of the outbreak was, while the other 'experts', including the ostensible Minister of Health, had wild, unsubstantiated 'theories' (using the word in the loosest sense possible here), which included things like "foreigners brought it with them, we should get rid of all the filthy foreigners". Of course the real cause was tracked down in a rational, logical manner by a stuttering doctor, who tracked it to a well that everyone in the outbreak area was using to get their water from.
..in a more direct comment about the featured article:
Take from that story what you will; there is a relevant meaning to it, you just have to look.
**********
Are we really going to unironicaly play the Minority Report card in actual law enforcement? Basically, take 'profiling' (comma, racial, I'm sure) to this extreme? Especially with the half-assed excuse for AI they keep applying to every damned thing? So much for the presumption of innocence, I guess. Reminds me of a bad joke a Latino comedian made once; he said "cops always follow around behind you when you're driving because they know sooner or later you'll do something wrong". You tell someone they're 'bad' often enough, they start believing it themselves. What's worse: shitty excuse for AI getting it wrong, and people minding their own business get watched constantly until someone 'decides' you did something wrong -- because cops never, ever plant evidence or otherwise 'manufacture' reasonable cause, and they never coerce people into false confessions.
We have hate crime and thought crime and now FUTURE CRIME!
WHEE!
Because stopping ACTUAL crimes (like grooming gangs, child rape, truck-of-peace, home invasions, etc) are all too much trouble!
We have have our personnel just sit safely behind a desk and "arrest" people all day long this way!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The problem is the crime predicting software may cause police to investigate people against whom there is no solid evidence. Investigation is not harmless -it can cause significant inconvenience and in some cases physical risk. It can also uncover minor crimes that are committed by many people, but usually not noticed. So harm can be caused to people without anything like due process.
Its very difficult to keep bias out of machine learning data sets. If past bias has caused an unusually high number of arrests for some minority group, information that is a proxy for membership in that group will cause more investigations, which will lead to a higher rate of detected crimes and a positive feedback. Its exactly the same sort of feedback that operates with humans, but without the higher reasoning functions that allow some humans to counteract this pattern matching.
You're 100% correct. White privilege only works in coastal blue states. I'm glad we can all agree on that.
I think the British know perfectly well what thoughtcrime is. Yes, it could be used to check which areas needs more locks. However, criminals adapt much faster than statistics. All other implementations are very unbellythinkful.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
As for "real freedom" that's fairly subjective based on what you consider freedom to be. There probably isn't any country in the world that everyone would say is a perfect bastion of freedom- because it's a precarious balance. Some would consider the US to be less free with it's lack of representative vote (electoral system), a political system that is biased towards a two party system, lack of an unbiased media (everything leans one way or the other to a degree), world's highest incarceration rate, lack of egalitarian education or health systems. (wealthy areas have much better schools, and rich people get better care). Lots of "morality laws" based on drugs, alcohol, sexual morality.
This
The UK is actually one of the better nations for personal liberty, even amongst developed nations. We treat drug offences are minor crimes (most drug offences are routinely ignored). The powers of the police to actually make arrests is very limited (and when violated, you are "de-arrested", not released without charge or have a charge trumped up against you), you'll never be pulled over for doing 10 over on the motorway, let alone have your cash confiscated on the spot as "drug money". Our prison population is far too large though, for the number of prisons we actually have.
Nor do we regulate the morality of sex. In fact it's a running joke that whatever sexual proclivity you have, it'll cost you £300 in London. Yes, prostitution is legal here in England and Wales (pimping is not though).
We've got a few foibles like cutting into a queue being a near capital offence. But all nations have their foibles.
Personal liberty is one of the four British core values.
What I'd like to know is what this prediction software is actually doing. Sure it sounds scary and the Beeb sucks at technology reporting, but what if it is just trying to automate what CID (detectives) already do and draw patterns? It could be as simple as "Guv, there's been a lot of car fefts in 'Ackney, might want to put a few extra uniforms down there", maybe even going as far as to identify the types of cars being stolen, approximate times, any connection between the owners (same dealer/mechanic). There's no point in complaining that this is Minority Report, without actually knowing what's happening. Lets not base our entire knowledge of things based on movies, we're not the US president.
OTOH, we are the nation that actually deployed Skynet.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
That was for Ireland and bank crime.
Getting caught with the tools for a crime on the way to do a crime.
That is what the software is needed for. To continually tell Americans that the Republic of Ireland (ROI) is a completely different nation to the United Kingdom of England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories... None of which include the ROI.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The government takes the profits of the Crown Estate, it doesn't own it. End that deal and the monarch gets the profits back - it's a net loss to the UK taxpayer.
That's a common misconception. Since 1760 the monarch hasn't owned it.
The Crown Estate belongs to the British people "in the name of the monarch" (basically to save face it kept the name). George III ran up a lot of debts and parliament bailed him out in exchange for the Crown Estate. The Crown Estate belongs to the people of Britain now. Her Majesty occupies certain parts of the Crown Estate on the whims of the people. She does outright own a lot of estates herself though.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Nor do we regulate the morality of sex.
That's not entirely true. Certain niche's are off-limits. For example "face sitting", the act of a "dominant" woman sitting on the face of a man to receive pleasuring is not legal to be filmed or watched in the UK
"That's the way to do it" - Punch