By Ajay Sandhu
The Human Rights, Big Data and Technology Project (HRBDT) recently made a submission to the UK Home Affairs Committee inquiry into ‘Policing for the future: changing demands and new challenges’. The submission summarized the opportunities and risks associated with the police’s adoption of ‘data driven technologies,’ which aid the bulk collection, storage, and analysis of data about persons, places, and practices. Data driven technologies can improve the efficiency of police work by offering law enforcement agencies methods of analysing crime data and generating predictions about crime that is yet to take place. For example, police can use data driven technology to make decisions regarding the most-effective allocation of scarce police resources. However, existing research indicates a series of risks that must be considered when adopting data driven technologies. This submission highlights three risks associated with data driven technologies, focusing on: the quality of the input data, the potential for discriminatory decision-making, and privacy harms. This blog recaps the conclusion of our submission by highlighting the risks associated with data driven technologies used to predict crimes.
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