The Threat of Algorithmic Policing
The mass surveillance industry is rapidly taking the next alarming steps to dovetail with aggressive policing
This morning, while scrolling Twitter, I came across an article by Michelle Chen in The Nation called Defund the Police Algorithms. Interested, I clicked through to read it and found the details to be just as chilling as I’d imagined. The dangerous, discriminatory biases present in law enforcement practices are being programmed into algorithms and automated. The practice of “predictive policing” (think the Precrime division in Minority Report) is a particularly frightening development. I thought the Nation article was important enough to share here, and I hope you’ll take the time to read it. I also did a short spot of research and discovered a report from Liberty, a UK human rights organization that found “at least 14 UK police forces have used or intend to use discriminatory computer algorithms to predict where crime will be committed and by whom.” It’s very short, so I hope you’ll take a look at it too.
One of the reasons I was so drawn to this topic, is because I’ve written extensively about the dangers of mass surveillance being linked to policing. In my piece, Alexa is a Fed, I specifically mention the desire in some circles to have Alexas and similar technology link directly to police stations. Think about it: a live microphone in your home being connected to speakers with cops on the other end. Sounds like a recipe for abuse.
Most of you on this email list probably found me on Medium and signed up because you like my essays. I also write fiction under the pseudonym, Harrison Kitteridge. The anchor of my first novel, Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Paper Journal, is algorithmic policing. In the world my Sherlock Holmes navigates, a powerful social networking platform called The Archive has been fully integrated with government and personal records. Each citizen has a Personal Archive File that began while they were still in the womb, would terminate at death, and was accessible to anyone. When the story begins, The Archive is being linked to a powerful crime-solving algorithm that threatens to make Sherlock Holmes obsolete. I wrote the book in 2016, and, since then, I’ve become more convinced that something like The Archive could emerge, and I have no doubt that if it did, policing would be grafted on top of it.
You can preview the novel on Medium, or for Kindle below.
Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Paper Journal and the prequel Before Holmes Met Watson are available on major ebook retailers (links here).
I share your concerns. I enjoyed both of your Sherlock novels by the way