The French NGO La Quadrature du Net after several months of investigation (as part of a European initiative coordinated by British NGO Fair Trials [*]) has released a report (pdf) on the state of predictive policing in France.

Read their article Predictive Policing in France: Against opacity and discrimination, the need for a ban. They write:

After several months of investigation, as part of a European initiative coordinated by British NGO Fair Trials, La Quadrature has released a report on the state of predictive policing in France. In light of the information gathered, and given the dangers these systems carry when they incorporate socio-demographic data as a basis for their recommendations, we call for their ban.

After documenting back in 2017 the arrival of so-called predictive policing systems, and then being confronted with the lack of up-to-date information and real public debate, we sought to investigate them in more detail. For this report, we have therefore compiled the data available on several predictive policing software systems formerly or currently in use within French police forces.

They summarize the main criticisms of the systems studied, most of which use artificial intelligence techniques:

• Correlation is not causation
• Potentially discriminatory variables
• Criminological false beliefs
• A risk of self-reinforcement
• Possible abuses of power
• Technologies of dubious effectiveness
• Important shortcomings in the handling of personal data

Their conclusion:

It’s urgent to ban predictive policing

Predictive policing systems are hardly in the news anymore. And yet, despite a blatant lack of evaluation, legislative oversight and poor operational results, the promoters of these technologies continue to entertain the belief that “artificial intelligence” will be able to make the police more “efficient”. From our point of view, what these systems produce is, above all, an automation of social injustice and of police violence, and an even greater dehumanization of relations between the police and the population.

In this context, it is urgent to put a stop to the use of these technologies and then conduct a rigorous evaluation of their implementation, effects and dangers. The state of our knowledge leads us to believe that such transparency will prove their ineptitude and dangers, and provide further evidence of the need to ban them.

 

Relevance for predictive policing by ‘obliged entities’ under European AML/CFT legislation

La Quadrature’s findings are relevant to the Europe-wide surveillance system that European lawmakers are working on (AML Package, read also the article on the EU TRACE project) and to the plea by Dutch banks, supported by the Dutch government (although the bill has been declared controversial) for a banking dragnet (read the articles on the entity of the Dutch banks, TMNL, that will carry out surveillance activities for the government).

[*] That is also campaigning against predictive policing.