2 ms·

As long as it's just flagging people and not arresting/harassing them, I don't think the error rate matters that much. Even a system that says "there's a 10% c

• perl4ever 9y ago
  The probability of any positive, and the probability of a false positive are quite distinct things. It makes a big difference if, of that 10%, 99% are false positives, or 1% are. If 99% are false positives, then there is another form of harm being done even if the police are not abusive. Time and energy are being spent to vet those positives. It's like medical tests that say you have cancer. If there are a lot of false alarms, people waste effort and don't catch the real issues. The number of false negatives also matters, and is also not determined by your 10% figure. That is, out of the 90% that weren't flagged, how many should've been?
  • ataturk 9y ago
    Worse than awful! Back in 2002, I wrote about the problems with using databases to mine data for catching terrorists. The problem is that the number of terrorists is tiny and the natural error rate of the database hovers around 5%, so you're having a slew of false positives all the time. It's practically worthless unless you happen to be selling these types of systems. Digital snake oil.