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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
We're talking about the country that arrested someone over a Nazi pug joke. We know exactly which way they're going with regards to surveillance and thoughtcrime.
In terms of morals, Net Positive and Net Negative isn't good enough.
How we handle justice in a society is a strong indication of our real morals as a society.
It is really easy to justify immoral cruelty, if there is a strong net benefit. But it isn't the right thing to do. Even if nicer way of doing things has less of a net benefit, it is probably the better more moral thing to do.
The big problem as you had stated the true-net value isn't obvious and may not be calculated for a long time. There is only so much oppression a group can handle, and also if a group isn't allowed to be shared the benefits of society, they will not follow the rules of that society, and make their own sub groups, thus for a program to help identify crime, would find a stronger correlation to that area.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.