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Police in Canada Are Tracking People’s ‘Negative’ Behavior in a ‘Risk’ Database

vice.com

51–60 of 289 posts

Re: Police in Canada Are Tracking People’s ‘Negative’ Behavior in a ‘Risk’ Database

#51
People 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

[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.

Re: Police in Canada Are Tracking People’s ‘Negative’ Behavior in a ‘Risk’ Database

#52
post #31
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having grown up in Iceland where the police don't even carry guns I'd be very suspicious of this specific interaction. I wouldn't hesitate to talk to a police officer on the street, or chat with them if I was routinely detained at a traffic stop or whatever. But in this scenario the police are unprompted at your door and their first ask is to come into your house. If the police just want to talk to you because they'r…

> But in this scenario the police are unprompted at your door and their first ask is to come into your house. If the police just want to talk to you because they're concerned about you personally they'll just ask to talk to you in a place they wouldn't otherwise need a search warrant signed by a judge to enter. "Their first ask is to come into your house" is based on a quote Vice took out of context (and then blew up…

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Re: Police in Canada Are Tracking People’s ‘Negative’ Behavior in a ‘Risk’ Database

#53
post #30
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, 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.

> The police are not your friends As a Canadian, I disagree with this sentiment.

As a Canadian, I think the police are pretty neutral. They aren’t your friends or enemies. I once received death threats that they did not help me with until after I got attacked at work. They neither prey upon you nor help you.

Re: Police in Canada Are Tracking People’s ‘Negative’ Behavior in a ‘Risk’ Database

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You 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.

police add to database "NEGATIVE_BEHAVIOR: declined invitation into home"

also: "NEGATIVE_BEHAVIOUR: asked for a warrant"

Re: Police in Canada Are Tracking People’s ‘Negative’ Behavior in a ‘Risk’ Database

#55
post #30
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, 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.

> The police are not your friends As a Canadian, I disagree with this sentiment.

-Do you break the laws?

-No!

-How many laws and regulations are there currently to follow?

-???

-Then how can you be sure you follow them all?

The police are not your friends and unsolicited interaction with the Police can only harm you, not help. Their priority is not to help or protect anyone but the government system.

Re: Police in Canada Are Tracking People’s ‘Negative’ Behavior in a ‘Risk’ Database

#56
post #46

Most 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 !

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Re: Police in Canada Are Tracking People’s ‘Negative’ Behavior in a ‘Risk’ Database

#57
post #18
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, 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.

This 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.

> Police in other countries usually works out of a desire to help.

From my experience in India, Unless you are rich, you should try to stay away from police as much as possible, cause they can really fuck your life up.

Re: Police in Canada Are Tracking People’s ‘Negative’ Behavior in a ‘Risk’ Database

#58
post #18
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, 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.

This 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.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the US and everything to do with an asymmetric relationship.

The police have immense power, you do not.

What do you have to gain from interacting with the police? Now, compare this to what you stand to lose by interacting with the police.

The rule is simple: don't interact with the police. They are not your friends, anything you do or say can and will be used against you at a whim.

Do not romanticize other countries, please.

Re: Police in Canada Are Tracking People’s ‘Negative’ Behavior in a ‘Risk’ Database

#59

Sincere question: why is that not benevolent?

One 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.

Re: Police in Canada Are Tracking People’s ‘Negative’ Behavior in a ‘Risk’ Database

#60
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, 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.

“The police are not your friends.” In some countries outside the US, they are. https://www.oapen.org/download?type=document&docid=634763

Still, they usually have absolute power to screw you over, if they fancy to do so.

Safest way to not give them any ideas is to minimize interaction.

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