Minority Report is getting closer to reality

TOMORROW'S CHIP WRAPPER the Daily Mail has reported that the American police are testing out Minority Report style crime prediction software.

Rupert Murdoch's UK tabloid reports that cyber-plod are considering the use of software that uses algorithms to predict what offenders are most likely re-offend, adding that in some cases it might be able to predict where, when and how any crime will be committed. In the future it might even be able to predict the Daily Mail.

The Mail said that if the trials are successful the software will be used to set bail amounts and make sentencing recommendations - which is nice, if you are an enemy of civil liberties and considered human reasoning.

The Mail, itself a bastion of sensible thought, said that the implementation of the technology could "spark an outcry from privacy campaigners and civil rights groups, not least because of the strong resemblance to the 2002 sci-fi thriller 'Minority Report'". We don't know if civil rights groups own the rights to that film, so we can only assume that somewhere along the line this message got garbled.

The software, which could terrify anyone with so much as an overdue library book, was developed by a Richard Berk, who is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. According to the Mail his crystal ball technology is already being used in Baltimore and Philadelphia to "predict which individuals on parole are most likely to murder and to be murdered".

It is hoped that the software will stop the police from having to make informed decisions about people, something that presumably no one believes that they can do. Talking to the Mail, Berk said, "It used to be that parole officers used the person's criminal record, and their good judgment, to determine [what level of supervision was required]. This research replaces those seat-of-the-pants calculations."

Apparently anything that stops the plod from having to think too hard should be applauded. µ