Police experimenting with Minority Report-style crime prediction

Artificial intelligence tools have proliferated throughout police work over the last decade. These include “predictive policing” algorithms, which police use to predict who will commit crimes, when and where crimes will be committed – and even who might become a victim.

It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but police forces up and down the country are already utilising these technologies and feeding them large sets of highly sensitive personal data.

This is all without any proper oversight, transparency or legal safeguards in place, and despite increasing evidence that these systems are biased, discriminatory and wildly inaccurate.

Our reporters at Liberty Investigates have been delving into the use of predictive policing, with a focus on Avon & Somerset Police – one of the main cheerleaders for AI in police work.

In an article published in WIRED today, our journalists report on the giant experiment this police force has been conducting on Bristol’s residents.

Some 475,000 people in Bristol – over 90% of the population – had their data fed into a system called “the Think Family Database” which was used to predict crime.

Arrest logs, housing status, mental health records, teenage pregnancies, enrolment in parenting courses, free school meals – at times all of these have been fed into predictive algorithms. Officials have then used this sensitive data to “score” tens of thousands of residents, building what they call a “picture of threat, harm, and risk” in the area.

One police data scientist described part of the approach this way: “I essentially dump all that data in a big bucket and stir it with a data-science spatula, and we come out with a lovely risk score for everybody.”

Most people never knew this had taken place, but one resident called John Pegram has been fighting for years to have his details removed from Bristol’s risk-scoring system. Liberty’s legal team have been supporting John with his case.

What you can do 

The risks posed to people’s rights are huge. The public aren’t aware of how these technologies are being used, and there is no proper oversight or regulation in place.

Police use of AI is already influencing decisions about people’s freedom, safety, and legal outcomes. These serious consequences call for proper accountability and governance.

Liberty has launched a new campaign with some key demands for transparency, testing and human oversight of police use of AI.

We also need a regulator with real teeth to make sure people’s rights are protected.

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