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Police In Canada Are Tracking People's 'Negative' Behavior In a 'Risk' Database (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Police, social services, and health workers in Canada are using shared databases to track the behavior of vulnerable people -- including minors and people experiencing homelessness -- with little oversight and often without consent. Documents obtained by Motherboard from Ontario's Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services (MCSCS) through an access to information request show that at least two provinces -- Ontario and Saskatchewan -- maintain a "Risk-driven Tracking Database" that is used to amass highly sensitive information about people's lives. Information in the database includes whether a person uses drugs, has been the victim of an assault, or lives in a "negative neighborhood."
The Risk-driven Tracking Database (RTD) is part of a collaborative approach to policing called the Hub model that partners cops, school staff, social workers, health care workers, and the provincial government. Information about people believed to be "at risk" of becoming criminals or victims of harm is shared between civilian agencies and police and is added to the database when a person is being evaluated for a rapid intervention intended to lower their risk levels. Interventions can range from a door knock and a chat to forced hospitalization or arrest. Data from the RTD is analyzed to identify trends -- for example, a spike in drug use in a particular area -- with the goal of producing planning data to deploy resources effectively, and create "community profiles" that could accelerate interventions under the Hub model, according to a 2015 Public Safety Canada report. Saskatchewan and Ontario officials say the data in the database is "de-identified" by removing details such as people's names and birthdates, but experts Motherboard spoke to say that scrubbing data so it may never be used to identify an individual is difficult if not impossible.
The Risk-driven Tracking Database (RTD) is part of a collaborative approach to policing called the Hub model that partners cops, school staff, social workers, health care workers, and the provincial government. Information about people believed to be "at risk" of becoming criminals or victims of harm is shared between civilian agencies and police and is added to the database when a person is being evaluated for a rapid intervention intended to lower their risk levels. Interventions can range from a door knock and a chat to forced hospitalization or arrest. Data from the RTD is analyzed to identify trends -- for example, a spike in drug use in a particular area -- with the goal of producing planning data to deploy resources effectively, and create "community profiles" that could accelerate interventions under the Hub model, according to a 2015 Public Safety Canada report. Saskatchewan and Ontario officials say the data in the database is "de-identified" by removing details such as people's names and birthdates, but experts Motherboard spoke to say that scrubbing data so it may never be used to identify an individual is difficult if not impossible.
Is that yet another newspeak term?
And who the FUCK is shocked/surprised over people keeping all kinds of databases? Like every single male geek, I have a database myself keeping track of every single person I've ever met, plotting their current house positions on a map and showing all kinds of stats such as whether they're married, living together with other people, etc. I use it for my personal use only, and it's been very enlightening and depressing...
Information in the database includes whether a person uses drugs, has been the victim of an assault, or lives in a "negative neighborhood." ...information about people believed to be "at risk" of becoming criminals or victims of harm is shared between civilian agencies and police and is added to the database when a person is being evaluated for a rapid intervention intended to lower their risk levels. Interventions can range from a door knock and a chat to forced hospitalization or arrest.
Saskatchewan and Ontario officials say the data in the database is "de-identified" by removing details such as poeple's names and birthdates
Which is it then?
What are they going to do, forcefully hospitalize or arrest a statistical de-identified person.
Insufficient maple syrup
Not being a hockey fan
Disdain for Tim Horton's
Lack of deference to the Corgi-Enthusiast-in-Chief
Not translating everything into French
Moose baiting
Too little gravy in the poutine
Mainlining smoked meat
Kraft Dinner addiction (outside of the norm)
and finally...
Insincere and/or infrequent apologies
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." --Groucho Marx
You know the score pal. You're either cop or you're little people.
Stop and Frisk in Toronto was one of the main drivers of crime downwards. Since Toronto stopped this in high crime areas, the crime rates are screeching ever higher now. Even went as high as the Supreme Court of Canada, that ruled that in particular circumstances such as high crime areas, it's an allowable behavior. It is a form of oppression, but here's what's weighted by the courts: "Does the action create a positive or negative effect for the community." This is weighted as societies rights to be safe vs the rights of the individual. This is a broader action then "detaining any 'close to' suspects in the case of an indictable offence(felony)." To give you another example, in Canada RIDE programs(anti-drunk driving) are a fundamental charter violation and an illegal search. The courts specifically stated that the rights of society to not be hit, injured or killed by the offender or possible offender outweigh the fundamentally guaranteed rights against an unlawful search.
Now to the article at hand, the entire premise of this is based on crime reduction. Let me give you an example, if you're living in Toronto(Ontario) you're more likely to be shot or stabbed then 10 years ago. Crime is a serious issue, more so that there are areas that are degenerating into ghettos ala the US type. In Regina(Saskatchewan), there are entire parts of the city that are ghettos. Crime is staggeringly high(for Canada), it revolves around a single group of people in most cases(aboriginals), this is similar in the US where cities have serious black crime problems in particular areas for example. Regina for instance, has(or had) the highest rape and murder rate in Canada with Winnipeg(Manitoba) catching up second or Toronto. In Winnipeg's case, similar problems similar groups of people, with similar issues leading to generational crime for instance. I.e. broken homes, no fathers, poor education, heavy substance abuse, etc.
Enjoy the shit show.
Om, nomnomnom...
So far China seems to be ahead because they have a phone app that lets users know there is a low credit looser nearby. If you hang out too near them you might get infected and be squashed like a bug too.
The US seems to be falling behind. We have all this data on everyone, and the public and private sector data is fused, but it's only Wall Street and law enforcement seem to use it as a permanent non-alterable black mark: no-fly and insane interest rates respectively. When Canada is ahead of the US as a surveillance state it's pathetic.
Why is Snark Required?
>"Stop and Frisk in Toronto was one of the main drivers of crime downwards. Since Toronto stopped this in high crime areas, the crime rates are screeching ever higher now."
Freedom and safety are often at odds with each other. To me, "stop and frisk" is a vile abuse of government power and a violation of essential civil liberties. Sure, it might be effective at reducing crime, but there is a big cost that comes with it... one that I hope people aren't willing to pay.
Sure, it might be effective at reducing crime, but there is a big cost that comes with it... one that I hope people aren't willing to pay.
That depends. Do you live in a country with no right to own a firearm, and self defense is heavily restricted? In turn your only real protection comes from the state, acting as a medium between the various facets of society. I get your reasoning, in the US for example castle laws exist. They don't in Canada, and there are places in Canada where police aren't minutes away they can be half a day or more away.
Om, nomnomnom...
I know it's hard to separate what you hear on Fauxnews with reality but what you're describing is pure fantasy entirely of your own delusional state. SAD.
They should put you on a psych hold.. oh wait, it's not the USA!
Imagine being so stupid, that you don't know that's exactly how it works in Canada. Why don't you go make a visit to a court room monday morning, and you can go see the hold in temp-psych ward cases from Fri/Sat rolling in. I'll even give you some help, London, Ontario.
Om, nomnomnom...
So how in hell do you do an anonymized Door Knock?
The police go out and knock on every door in the city: Excuse me, can I please talk to Mr/Ms Anonymous, he/she/it may be at risk of something or other...
This is obvious transparent BS and exemplifies the growth of the Nanny State.
Stop and Frisk in Toronto was one of the main drivers of crime downwards.
Your supporting argument for this claim is that the crime rate has increased after the practice was stopped. That's... something. I don't know whether or not crime has actually gone up in Toronto, but given that the man assigned to evaluate the effectiveness of carding (Stop and Frisk) called it, "a practice that has not definitively been shown to widely reduce or solve crime," it seems as though you're jumping to conclusions. Even if it's true that crime has in fact increased since then, there doesn't seem to be any reason to believe that it's not a coincidence.
You might also consider New York's Stop and Frisk program, which had few positive results.
What you describe in your second paragraph is racial profiling, what the article is describing seems to be broader than that. Though the "negative neighborhood" comment might be interpreted as having a racial component.
I wish I could mod you up but I've already commented here :(
If you're a victim of a crime or about to become one, I wish you luck if your recourse is waiting for the cops to arrive and save you. Especially in Canadian winter when the roads are bad and people forget how to drive.
In Canada, if you're about to get robbed, the cops will NOT be there to save you. And they won't even really be motivated to investigate afterwards.
Canada didn't run out of weed; the "approved" (aka legal) distributors had problems keeping up with the demand as people tried to switch away from the gray/black market. There was plenty of weed to go around; just not through the legal channels.
at least in my experience is that they're like a time bomb waiting to go off.
Having known and grown up with several mentally ill folk (the real kind, diagnosed schizophrenics and the like) they're not crazy 24/7. They go through months of lucidity and then have "episodes" of crazy for several weeks/months.
What's especially tough is that during the lucid times they know and understand what they did while they were in crazy town. So they go out of their way to hide the signs of problems because, well, what else can they do?
Folks see them and assume they're faking because of the lucid periods. That's the real problem. It makes it real easy to talk about pulling social services from them because why should I have to pay for somebody who's sane to have a place to live? Never mind that for two months out of the year their batshit crazy and can't do a thing about it and they wreck everything around them.
I hate to say this, but I've learned to stay away from them. Like I said, during the crazy times they wreck everything. They're a disaster waiting to happen. It's messed up, but I'm not in a position where I can do anything about it. I know somebody who has made mid 6 figures his whole life and deals with somebody like this and he barely makes it.
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Because the research I've seen says it's worthless. And like just about everywhere else Toronto's crime rate is going down. 2005 seemed to be the peak.
Stop and Frisk in the States is mostly used to keep undesirables (read: the poor) out of your neighborhood. It's also used as a segregation technique in large parts of the South. That's why we shot it down. Not sure about Canada though.
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Now, on the other hand, if a cop stops you in the street and starts asking you questions and your first reaction is to get uber-defensive and maybe even confrontational, then I'm sorry to say but in my eyes, you're the problem.
And in my eyes, if you don't do this, you're the problem.
Normalizing a police state is not what we should be doing. I am not ok with "papers please". A police state never ends well for its citizens. Given that here in the US police shoot non-armed individuals all the time, yeah, I'm fucking going to be on the defensive if some try to stop me. There's a non-zero chance that they will kill me. In fact, it's about as likely that they will kill me as an actual criminal would.
1. I am from a visible ethnic minority that is responsible for some not-insignificant portion of crime
2. My minority group also generally falls into the lower income bracket
3. It is statistically more probable that a member from my ethnic group will commit a violent crime compared to Caucasian or other groups
And the answer to none of those problems is police action. Those are 100% social issues, and need to be addressed with social change. Cops stopping you and potentially killing you does not solve those issues.
4. If I'm stopped and even searched by someone who is polite and has the welfare of MY community at heart, I welcome it
In what fantasy world do cops have the wellfare of your community at heart? Stop and frisk is the opposite of that. It's a tool of authoritarian repression and discrimination. It does nothing to solve the root issues of the problem, and everything to propagate them. You are far less likely to be carrying drugs than a white person, but you are far more likely to get stopped, searched, possibly killed, and sent to jail if you're not. Killing and jailing the men of minority populations does not make crime better or reduce poverty within those populations. It does exactly the opposite.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Gangs.
Largest by far percent of gun violence is gangs with handguns shooting each other. Next is suicide.
The chances of you getting involved with a shooting by the majority of legal gun owners is less than you dying in a car accident.
I for one, like to have the option to protect myself.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I'll just say this, my experience with cops must be vastly different to yours for us to have such polarizing opinions
His wasn't a serious comment. There is a concerted effort from...somewhere...to dissuade thoughtful participation by posting rude responses that address almost nothing.
Slashdot should look into it. This is worse than typical outrage trolling designed to elicit clicks and responses to increase ad views.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
For others who are reading this and modding it up, a bit of perspective.
The Stop and Frisk version in Toronto was known as Carding, and had problems. It targeted blacks disproportionately.
Read and watch these:
DocZone: Stop and Frisk
What You Need to Know About Carding
You also make it sound that Toronto is a kill zone. Yes, murder rate has gone up, and is the highest in Canada, but compared to cities in the USA, it is nothing.
Baltimore has 56 per 100,000, and Chicago had 23.8 per 100,000 in 2016.
Toronto's worse year in a decade (2018) is 96 murders for 2.8 million people, so 3.4 per 100,000, and that is up from around 2 previously.
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