Talking about predictive policing many of us probably think about the fascinating and scary world described by Steven Spielberg in his sci-fi movie Minority Report. But with the latest developments by american companies such as Palantir or by states like China the questions brought up by the movie are quickly becoming topics we need to consider today when we think about how to have a well functioning democracy anywhere on the globe.

In short predictive policing systems use public and private data like weather, crime statistics, income in a given area, employment etc. to predict when crimes will be committed, which crime it will be, who will be the perpetrator or who will be the victim. This might raise efficiency in the police force, but what about the potential downsides? We should ask ourselves: can the systems be biased? What happens if they simply make mistakes? Will they create self fulfilling prophecies?  And how do the systems influence our democratic processes?

To explore the important subject Next Generation Democracy is happy to once again collaborate with the CEMS Global Alliance and invite you to a digital cafe. We will start this session by giving an introduction to the current state of predictive policing systems as well as talk about some of the future trends. Thereafter we are very happy to be joined by Kate Robertson from the Citizen Lab at Toronto University who has both done extensive research on the subject and has practical experience with the legal side of the topic.

If you, like us, find this matter interesting we encourage you to come join us and shape the dialogue.

We really look forward to engaging with you on this important theme!

CEMS Global Alliance & Next Generation Democracy

Democracy and predictive policing - a conversation with Kate Robertson. A Next Generation Democracy & CEMS Digital Cafe