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Police in Canada Are Tracking People’s ‘Negative’ Behavior in a ‘Risk’ Database
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- canadigyt 7y agoThe Canadian social credit score
- honestoHeminway 7y agoVery sorry to rate you down citizen, but let me apologize for what is deemed necessary. Although, somebody with a drug addiction and children, may benefit from a little oversighted goverment oversight.
- freeflight 7y agoIt's really amazing how very comparable things can trigger such vastly different reactions.
- emptybits 7y agoFTA: The Ontario Provincial Police say, “We can knock on someone’s door and say, ‘We’re so worried about you, can we come in and chat?’” Yikes. I understand the positive spin is the police care about the wellbeing of at-risk people with these visits. But wouldn't it also be true that anything and everything the police observe and believe as a result of such a visit could also be used against the resident or others in the home?
- cperciva 7y agoYou're always free to say no.
- tjoff 7y agoSounds like negative behavior, doesn't it?
- inflatableDodo 7y agoDo they accept 'mu'?
- tastroder 7y agoCan you really? The article seems relatively clear that there are some problems regarding consent in this whole apparatus. I'm torn on the article. The Canadian government isn't China and we have had quite a few pretty public cases here in Germany where lack of inter-agency coordination led to serious harm in the context of our CPS equivalent. OTOH, at least from that article, this program doesn't seem to get the oversight required for such a task. At any rate, the lack of transparency and contractually forbidding people from talking about the program is a weird and all to common move these days.
- jdc 7y ago> Can you really? In my experience with the RCMP at least, yes. They might give you attitude about it, though. I have received a veiled threat or two though (which materialized to nothing).
- cperciva 7y agoYes you can. This program is being driven by a desire to identify potential future victims of crime, not a desire to identify future criminals.
- taneq 7y agoYeah, without some pretty strong new protections in place there is absolutely no upside and likely a significant downside to letting them in. The police are not your friends.
- sgift 7y agoThis post and the article have the same problem: Thinking the way police works/seems to work in the US (always out to get you) is universal to the world while it is the exception. Police in other countries usually works out of a desire to help.
- taneq 7y agoI don't know about Canada but I'd apply similar caution in Australia. Note that the police aren't your enemy, but the greater your surface area towards them the more likely you are to have issues, so unless you really need them you're still better off minimizing your exposure to them.
- cjhveal 7y agoHaving grown up in Canada, this also characterizes my experience with law enforcement.
- wolco 7y agoHaving also grown up in Canada the parent/parent could not be more accurate. The larger your surface area the more likely you will have problems. It makes sense. Law enforcement is looking for someone to blame for crimes. You interact enough you might just fit a profile. Police never lose pay for misjudging anyone.
- jstarfish 7y ago> Police never lose pay for misjudging anyone. This is an important point. Police are a bureaucracy with all the same incentives and problems inherent to that structure. They are seldom penalized for being wrong (even if someone gets shot/killed as a result) but they do miss out on promotions for not closing enough cases (or writing enough citations). Detectives under pressure will absolutely name weak suspects to achieve these ends and let the courts sort it out.
- goodcanadian 7y agoYou are generally free to decline to talk to the police. You definitely do not have to invite them into your home. Your rights around police interaction are very similar to those in the US.
- mcv 7y agoAt the same time, I would hope that Canadian police is a bit more trustworthy and trusted than US police. I certainly wouldn't want that kind of visit from police officers whose primary concern is to find a reason to arrest or shoot you, but if police is honestly trying to help and prevent problems, it's an entirely different matter. Police culture, policy and accountability matters a lot in a case like this.
- arcticbull 7y agoThey are about 6X less likely to kill you so that helps! [1] [1] https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/why-canadian-police-are-so-good-at-not-shooting-people https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/why-canadian-police-are...
- Causality1 7y agoCanadian police have their fair share of psychopathic bullies and systemic racist murder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatoon_freezing_deaths https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatoon_freezing_deaths https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/03/30/football_player_who_was_beaten_by_cops_pens_letter_of_forgiveness.html https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/03/30/football_player_... https://globalnews.ca/news/1608030/new-video-shows-another-case-of-alleged-police-brutality-in-terrace/ https://globalnews.ca/news/1608030/new-video-shows-another-c... https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2014/07/30/toronto_cop_charged_with_attempted_murder_in_sammy_yatim_shooting.html https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2014/07/30/toronto_cop_ch...
- mcv 7y agoDon't let perfect be the enemy of good, though. There will always be something wrong. The point is to address it and reduce how often it goes wrong. I'm not denying these incidents are terrible; they are. And even if you do address them and punish the perpetrators, you'll still occasionally have police officers that do the wrong thing. But that doesn't mean it's pointless to hold police accountable, or to train them better.
- mattlondon 7y agoWhat I find weird about all of this is that people actually answer their door to unexpected & unknown visitors?! Do you also answer your phone to unexpected & unknown callers?! My rule of thumb built up over years of annoyance & bullshit is: if you don't know who it is, or aren't expecting anything, ignore it; 99.9% of the time someone unexpected/unknown on the phone or at your door are just going to be wasting your time and attention. (trying to sell you something/con you/religious recruitment/generally be weird/mad etc)
- tonyedgecombe 7y agoI once had someone knock on the door who was having a heart attack. At first sight he looked like he was drunk. I'm glad I didn't ignore him and was able to help.
- Arnt 7y agoA friend of mine once read the local newspaper while he was on vacation somewhere, and there was a half-page article along the lines of: "Among the fans expected to show up for tomorrow's big sporting event are a large contingent of the country's worst hooligans. The police plans to increase its presence massively to ensure peace, with no less than eight extra officers." My friend decided to move there. Maybe you should too. You do gain a certain peace of mind from being able to open your door without risk or trouble.
- Joe-Z 7y agoMaybe I should just forget about it, but I don't understand your point. Where did your friend move and why? Where you criticizing the police for increasing presence in case of a hooligan invasion? Or where you applauding them for doing so? And how is this connected to what GP posted? I'm genuinely confused. If you read this, maybe you'd like to elaborate. Cheers!
- netsharc 7y agoNot the poster, but maybe the fact that they only needed 8 officers means the hooliganism wouldn't even be that bad, meaning it's a very peaceful place.
- tonyedgecombe 7y agoThis should be the responsibility of social services rather than law enforcement. If someone is a likely offender then they are probably going to clam up at the sight of the police.
- sonnyblarney 7y ago"police, health care professionals, and social workers participating in the Hub" - I think it probably (hopefully) mostly is.
- imgabe 7y ago"Wellness checks" are a thing in the US too. They are often for the case of "I haven't seen my neighbor in a week and there's a funny smell coming from their home." I don't see how it's a violation of any rights to knock on a door.
- turk73 7y agoWe have to get control over our technology and its applications or else we're going to suffer a far worse fate than those of the people depicted in "Brave New World" or "1984."
- cabaalis 7y agoI recommend everyone watch this video. It's geared towards lawyers. If the police are asking questions with any level of suspicion at all, don't talk to them. Even if you do not lie, and are innocent, the things you say can still be used against you. Summarizing: 1. There is no way it can help. 2. If your client is guilty (or even innocent), they might admit guilt with nothing in return. 3. If your client is innocent, they can still make some small mistake or tiny mistruth that can be used to convict by seeding doubt. 4. If your client is innocent, and does not make any small mistake or tiny mistruth, what is said can still be used in court to convict. 5. If your client is innocent, and tells the police absolutely nothing incriminating at all, the police can still mis-remember the conversation and result in a conviction. 6. If your client is innocent, and tells the police absolutely nothing incriminating at all, and the clients statements are videotaped so it cannot be mischaracterized, the police can still augment the conversation from their personal knowledge and result in a conviction. There's more, it goes on and on and on. Don't talk to police if you are being questioned about something, whether you did it or not. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
- 781 7y agoThat video is very US centric. In Europe in particular, police officers are not such an enemy. Also, in UK, refusing to talk to police at first contact can be used against you, for example it will be more difficult later to introduce exculpatory evidence that you were supposed to know of at the time you refused to speak. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_silence_in_England_and_Wales#Adverse_inferences_from_silence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_silence_in_England_an...
- chrisseaton 7y agoI believe the reason for this is the idea that it's a massive waste of the public's time and resources for you to refuse to reveal evidence which could have stopped the prosecution well before it went to trial.
- elliekelly 7y ago
- skywhopper 7y agoThe thing is that the police are not the appropriate agency to be leading "helpful" interventions. These are the people empowered to kill you, imprison you, seize your belongings, and charge you with crimes. Those people are not the ones who should be knocking on your door offering "help".
- mcv 7y agoDifferent cultures have different ideas on the role of police.
- lofties 7y agoWe tend to complain when failure by communication between social services and law enforcement results in unnecessary deaths. Now Canadian law enforcement has started a program that brings this synergy and we raise concerns about our privacy. Although the concerns about privacy are grounded; I would love to see the evaluation of this program after one year. I believe that if we want to protect those most at risk in our society, this is a step in the right direction.
- raxxorrax 7y agoCynical view: As with surveillance laws, these kind of control is never rolled back, so we could skip the evaluation.
- jjtheblunt 7y agoSincere question: why is that not benevolent?
- yakshaving_jgt 7y agoBecause this sort of intervention leads directly to an Orwellian dystopia. From the article: > According to MCSCS documents, the most common risk factors ascribed to people in the database in 2017 were mental health (including “suspected” mental health issues), criminal involvement, drug use, and “antisocial/negative behaviour,” defined as “obnoxious [or] disruptive” behaviour. It's a very short step from "antisocial/negative/obnoxious/disruptive behaviour" to a literal implementation of thoughtcrime.
- a_imho 7y agoDefinition of negative is subjective and free to change.
- jonathanstrange 7y agoOne reason not mentioned yet is that there is almost never any proper evaluation of these technologies and that in the area of crime detection this evaluation is very difficult due to lack of data. The police has limited resources and power, so they cannot solve all crimes and some go even unnoticed. So in reality, wherever the police looks more, the police finds more crimes. (This would be true even if crimes were completely randomly spread across the population.) At the same time, only discovered crimes enter the police statistics and estimating undiscovered crime rates is very difficult and speculative. As a consequence, these predictive "risk assessment" technologies can appear to be highly successful, especially to the police themselves who often already have matching biases, when in reality they may be nearly useless or heavily biased. Apart from that there is of course also the thought crime aspect of the matter. It's just not desirable to have that kind of continuous monitoring and control of the police over population, and others have said enough about that already.
- mar77i 7y agoI must say I'm on the fence about such databases, because I realize how law enforcement and social services can benefit from increased cooperation and having an idea how person might behave when they're stressed out, ie. when police confronts them. In Switzerland we had several scandals in the previous century about political and social tracking that police implemented without governmental oversight, and since the law has actually "caught up" under the banner of keeping up with trouble-makers at soccer games, tracking mechanisms now appear regulated to some degree - making room for nuance, hopefully. From that perspective it doesn't come as a complete surprise that law enforcement first comes up with the idea, then gets reprimanded and then due process is put into place while letting police do their work, because, let's be real here, that's what they're trying to do, not implement an Orwellian dystopia. I wonder how much jumping to that accusation helps in this kind of discussion, even though I'm all for sensitizing law enforcement on these topics.
- metrxqin 7y agoCertianly copied from China.
- webappguy 7y agoPre-crime. Thanks Tom Cruise.
- Proven 7y agoNice - social credit system in theatre near you. On the bright side they could enhance it monitor citizens’ CO2 behavior which would increase support for the system.
- titzer 7y agoFirst thing the site does is pop up the standard "may we please track the crap out of you" dialogs (Thank god they are required by law now to do this). There might be some irony here, I just can't put my finger on it.
- freeflight 7y agoAnd unlike many other sites (or this Canadian program), it has a nice "say no to all" button and still takes you to the article, I see no problem with any of that.
- gosseyn 7y agoMost comments are about the negatives ...but I wonder ...the data is here ...we have the technology to make use of it ... AI alone cant be "trusted" ( as it's still primitive ) humans alone cant be trusted ( as abuse of power and not objective ) there must be a way ? An in between ? I don't have much knowledge about the subject but I'm genuinely curious !
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jammygit 7y ago“Information about people believed to be “at risk” of becoming criminals or victims of harm is shared between civilian agencies and police and is added to the database when a person is being evaluated for a rapid intervention intended to lower their risk levels.” Remind anybody else of precrime from minority report?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- laumars 7y agoFirst of all I want to say that I don't agree with the collection of this data. ...however there is an important distinction with Minority Report in that people were convicted of crimes based on premonitions. If this data was instead used to support at risk people - like how disruptive kids at school are often given support to help enable them to grow into better people - then I'd be more sympathetic with the motives. For example "at risk" people might be those from less affluent or educated backgrounds who might be resentful but they might just need a little help to realise they too have opportunities and potential. The problem is, once you have this data, it becomes increasingly small steps from using it to enable those who need help the most to abusing it to persecute those who are already neglected by society.
- tempguy9999 7y ago> help enable them to grow into better people Wow, 'better people' - that's loaded and almost completely unspecified here. That's ripe for abuse. "become christian, god will make you a better person" "do as you're told, obey orders, you'll be a better person" "don't disrupt the teacher even if they're wrong, people don't like 'clever' people" I could go on all day. That's the thin end of a dangerous wedge. I don't like conformists.
- laumars 7y agoYou're looking for outrage rather than trying to understand point I'm making and in doing so you've gotten the wrong end of the proverbial stick. I'm not saying everyone should conform, I'm just saying some people need more help than others to make a life for themselves. Sometimes it's because of substance abuse, sometimes it's because of mental, physical or sexual abuse as a kid that leads them into a pattern of bad behaviour. Sometimes it's just circumstances or a mental attitude that is less dramatic than the aforementioned. But in each case it's better to work with them to help enable them to lead happy lives rather than ignore them, outcast them and then incarcerate them because they had nowhere else to turn. If people are just disruptive because they're smart then they're just disruptive because they're smart. They're not an "at risk" group. By "at risk" we're talking people who turn to crime because they felt it was their only option in life. What I was talking about is supporting them so they realise they do have options. If they then choose crime, well that's then their choice. But in many instances people actually don't want that when they realise they have options in their life.
- 3pt14159 7y agoPeople here are overreacting. First, Vice is an unreliable news organization with seriously substantiated claims that one of its founders has backed white supremacists, including Proud Boys. It's also been involved in international drug smuggling. And inflating its advertising numbers by an order of magnitude. Second, the police in Canada are some of the finest in the world. There are problem spots that I've seen with my own eyes[0] but by-and-large the police and intelligence services in Canada bend over backwards to respect individual rights. If you've never actually talked to members of the RCMP or Canadian IC then I respectfully ask that you educate yourself before worrying that the sky is falling. If you're from out of the country and don't know where to start, try The Intrepid Podcast. Start from the beginning, as it gets more weeds-y as the episodes progress. In my opinion, it's insightful, fair, and nuanced. https://www.intrepidpodcast.com/podcast https://www.intrepidpodcast.com/podcast [0] Track level Toronto police working in the tunnels of the TCC were being paid off to turn a blind eye to drug running, but that was over a decade ago and a very atypical occurrence.
- malms 7y agoyou are missing the truth and goal of such an article. people here think they are a counterpower to evil actors with their keyboards. The truth doesn't matter and you are going into the sense of enabling police instead of being acting as a counter power. (just explaining the downvotes)
- heavenlyblue 7y ago>> It's also been involved in international drug smuggling. This person is probably mentioning the arrest of a Vice music site editor on cocaine smuggling (as you can see, parent's take on this is very different from reality): https://www.spin.com/2019/02/vice-editor-slava-p-arrested-cocaine-smuggling/ https://www.spin.com/2019/02/vice-editor-slava-p-arrested-co... Makes me question everything else you are commenting here on.
- foldr 7y agoThere's some truth to the rest of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_McInnes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_McInnes
- super_mario 7y agoGood to see our police is tracking us but are not worried about liberal government laundering Isis fighters and bringing them into our neighborhoods to live next to our children.
- born2discover 7y ago"Big Brother is Watching You."
- EliRivers 7y agoThe principle here - that good community policing has a strong preventative, social aspect - is nothing new. It has long been expected that good community police officers know people in their area who might be at risk of going down a criminal path and use their judgement to intervene appropriately. So is the objection (of some) that this principle is wrong, or is the objection that this aspect of what is generally considered good policing shouldn't be systematised and recorded?
- lukevdp 7y agoThe objection here is “because data”
- wongarsu 7y agoOn the small scale it is good policing. But on the large scale it is also disturbingly similar to what East Germany (and other socialist/Stalinist states) did: you were constantly monitored, and the police who genuinely were your friend might visit individuals at risk (of being uncommunist) and help them back on the right path. Something is systematisied, but it's not entirely clear what. And even if it's good now that doesn't stop it from being corrupted by someone in power later.
- SiempreViernes 7y agoHalfway down a person actually knowledgable about the system raises the legitimate concern that there are many non-consensual interventions, which is bad because they work way worse than the consensual ones. A hypothesis could be that the predictions of an impressive sounding system means people are less concerned about getting consent. This hypothesis is completely absent from the text, and instead it is just the textual equivalent of a video with menacing music aling pictures of the text "Government" and clips of police brutality. Honestly I wonder if the author of the piece even accept that the government keeps a record of who has citizenship.
- bayesian_horse 7y agoStarting mental health interventions before that mental health problem turns into compulsory admission or criminal problems, sounds generally like a good idea.
- freeflight 7y agoEven human doctors struggle with proper mental diagnosis, I seriously doubt an AI is gonna do any better. Not to mention that every false positive would lead to the compulsory mental treatment of completely healthy people.
- bayesian_horse 7y agoI share that concern. The policies referenced in the article emphasize interventions short of compulsory treatment. In some cases even these "door knocks" can lead to admission, for example if the person visited exhibits strong signs of psychosis or potential for self-harm. The judgement of police officers may not be perfect but it is better than nothing. I know that there are trade-offs to be made and caution is to be exercised, but in general I think it's worth a try to prevent escalation of mental health crisis.
- Stubbs 7y agoOh Canada ...
- ulisesrmzroche 7y agoBig Brother A.I is quite scary, like an evil santa, as in: "He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when yr awake, he knows if you've been bad or good; so be good! for goodness sake"
- SketchySeaBeast 7y agoExcept Santa can probably draw a convincing cat.
- freeflight 7y agoOr the much more common: "He knows if you are a terrorist" [0] [0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/the-nsas-skynet-program-may-be-killing-thousands-of-innocent-people/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/the-n...
- diveanon 7y agoSo at what point would this become a net positive to society? Let's say it stops an average of 5 mass shootings a year and 200 domestic homicides, will the cost of lost privacy be worth it? I don't like the idea of systems like this, but in places like the United States where gun control and mental health treatment are off the table I don't see many other options.
- Griffinsauce 7y agoYour last point is completely invalid IMO. Its doing a bad hack while not fixing the structural problems. As they say in Dutch: mopping with the tap open... Taking good options off the table for irrational reasons does not make the next best options any better.
- diveanon 7y agoNobody is happy with a good compromise. Pitch me on how you would solve those issues in the current political climate?
- PostOnce 7y agoWhat if we move the TSA into the streets and have mandatory inspections of every home every day? We could mandate reporting on neighbors. We, too, could become a shining example of what happens when the state is primarily concerned with the welfare of its citizens, just like North Korea.
- diveanon 7y agoYou're missing the point. Americans already value physical privacy over digital. Nobody is taking their guns, just their privacy, which they gave away long ago for likes. Use the idiocy of masses for some good and maybe we can solve some real problems instead of dancing around the same old issues. Net neutrality and digital privacy are dead, and most western countries are well on their way to becoming surveillance states. Time to start looking towards the future and being pragmatic about the flaws we have built into our societies.
- ilovetux 7y agoI cant wrap my head around this. They say identifiable information is removed but if that's true how do they know who to intervene with? How do they re-identify people who are at risk?
- yspeak 7y agoThis seems silly and Luddite.. Agencies have been forever keeping hard files on people they have been helping. So now they are putting it in computers and we should all now freak out. Welcome to the digital age..
- hedgedoops2 7y agoThe problem is that police are being involved in the job of social workers. I guess it would be an acceptable and useful system if: - Police had write-only access to the database. - Police had no involvement in interventions. - Anyone was able to fill out a form and get their data purged. - Everyone in the database could easily discover it. Basically, separate law enforcement and social work. And enforce strict data souvereignity. The next problem is that it blurs the line between 'client' and 'suspect'.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago>Basically, separate law enforcement and social work. And enforce strict data souvereignity. This is how things used to be in decades past. The police did police things and social workers did social work things and there was no way in hell the police were reading the social workers notes without a warrant and even then there's a chance that would still be protected.
- peeters 7y ago> The problem is that police are being involved in the job of social workers. Isn't the whole point of this that they can't be expected to be social workers? > For example, a police officer may be called to respond to someone’s disruptive but non-criminal behaviour time and again. Under the Hub model, the officer can bring the person’s situation to the Hub—which may include staff from child welfare, addictions, or housing assistance agencies—and ask if other agencies can intervene. The idea is that calling the police may be a blunt instrument, but maybe they can get the right instrument in place. I'm not dismissing the concerns with such information sharing, just seems like the point is to get the right people for the right circumstance.
- Quanttek 7y agoStupid question but how can they perform interventions when the data is de-identified? I could see how that would work on a community level but not on an individual level
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago> a collaborative approach to policing called the Hub model that partners cops, school staff, social workers, health care workers, and the provincial government. So this is like the social work version of combined arms? Use all your resources in coordination to quash any potential threat. "Little Jimmy gave his teacher the bird, his parents told the social workers to fuck off and they've got a Gadsden flag hung in the window of their trailer, better send the cops to harass them so they learn that we don't tolerate people who don't take our authority seriously"
- jbeales 7y agoIs the main photo a Naughty by Nature reference?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mises 7y agoOh man. I've been hearing people complain for years that there was "suspicious behavior" before a lot of the school shootings. I was always nervous about the kind of precedent that set. Maybe just a bad day? Dog died? Suspicious. If some one calls and reports you, police can come "check on you" and monitor you (cause no one would ever abuse that). When people say "nanny state", this is possibly a more literal interpretation than I ever hoped to see. "You feeling all right? Maybe take a time out and calm down". I guess my annoyance is based on the same issues I have with facial recognition, fingerprinting, or any "databases": if I have committed no crime, police should not have my information, know where I am, or maintain information on me.