Predicting crimes with Google
I recently posted a question to the participants
in my WhatsApp broadcast , that ‘if Google knows
everything, then why don’t we predict the likely criminal behaviour of a person’
(Courtesy–Viraj P., SIBM Pune graduate & a good friend of mine). I had received interesting arguments which I have collated in this article, supplemented with my
own research.
‘A man is innocent until he commits a crime’. Conspiracy to commit a
crime is not a crime unto itself. Moreover, there cannot be a bigger crime than
incriminating a person. Even AI make predictions with 95% accuracy. Hence, this
would imply that 5% of the accused might face false convictions. In addition,
we should not pay heed as to what somebody thinks about an event that ‘might’
occur in the future, says my friend Soumik.
The presumption of innocence,
sometimes referred to by the Latin expression “ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat” (the burden of proof
is on the one who declares, not on one who denies), is the principle that one
is considered innocent unless proven guilty. In many countries, presumption of
innocence is a legal right of the accused in a criminal trial, and it is an
international human right under the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
Article 11 [Wikipedia]. This is
because, when one hear someone being arrested for the killing of another human
being, they feel pity for the dead person and a perception is built that the
accused person is the actual killer. Yet
the emotions vary in the case of an animal and involvement of a superstar (Pun intended). Hence, it is very
difficult to declare a human being criminal even before he commits a crime. You
just cannot predict the future!
Another point to ponder upon is the inaccuracy
of data. Social media is filled with charlatans. One can also call it their social
avatar. In addition, the data is only available for the time any user is active on the
application. Apps does not capture the data rest of the time. Besides, identity
misuse cannot be denied. As a result of which, we cannot build theories based on incomplete
knowledge.
Furthermore, technology, crime and
education are closely related. Elisa Rizzo, in her research paper titled ‘Education and Crime in India’; found
that both education and crime are equilibrium phenomena. The main results show
that an expansion in education, lowering the cost of access to schooling, or an
increase of the productivity of the education system, more and better schools
or better teaching, are effective policies to deter crime only in the short run
(sic). It is quite evident that educated people are more tech savvy than
uneducated people. Because of which, more than half of the populations will be out of
the radar.
Concurrently, we cannot ignore
the doctoring of data. Recently the Facebook-gate has brought this data game to
the surface and it will cease to regain that trust.
Unquestionably, predictive analysis
has proved its merit in the case of machines. However, when it comes to understanding
the human beings, the technology has not yet manifested its worth. May be
because human behaviour is not pure science, but a mix of arts as well. Science
has not been able to capture all the parameters of human behaviour. Offenders do
come in all shapes, sizes, colours and ages. Nevertheless, on the inside;
psychology suggests that they may share some traits. However, this is not accurate
and has to be supplemented with proper data. Apart from the planned crimes, many a times crime is commited out
of the fear, or in the heat of the moment, or sometimes such unavoidable circumstances are created.
Technology has progressively increased
in our lives and so has the immensity of data. Technical consultant and web
developer Dylan Curran revealed the
extent of the tracking by Google and Facebook in his series of tweets that has
been retweeted more than 148,000 times. Curran posted photos of the personal
data collected by Google (which users are able to download) and the file was astonishingly
5.5 GB in size, equal to about three million Word documents. He also downloaded
his data from Facebook, which was about 600 MB — roughly 400,000 Word documents.
A friend of mine, who created his Gmail account in 2015, had downloaded the
file size of size 12 GB while his Facebook data file size was merely few 100
MBs. Of course, it also depends on how active one is on that application. In the
case of Facebook, users can control the data, but Google stores everything and
most of the time, user is unaware.
However, the gigantic amount of
data from the activities of the convicts can be utilized to create patterns. This
pattern could then be used to map the activities of the people under
observations. Now a day, we learn about the false convictions being surfaced in
several cases. Hence, this can also help in re-examining the cases brought
under consideration. Additionally, this will significantly help in fair and
speedy trial of the ongoing cases and immensely reduce the pressure on the
judiciary.
The Future is extremely volatile
and technology is surely going to infiltrate into every aspect of human beings.
With the evolution in technology, the magnitude of crime will also increase that
can only be riposted with technology. For example, China has proposed citizen trust
score or be it CIBIL score which is already in place for one’s financial
history. Similarly, data driven profiling of each citizen must be on the cards
of every state heads. Unequivocally, the likes of Google or Facebook can only provide
that data with such a precision.
References:
[2] My WhatsApp Broadcast group
[3] Wikipedia
Signing off:-Mr R.K. Narnoli
Comments
Post a Comment
Would love to hear from you...