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

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

#71

Post by msla »

lixtra wrote: post #23
sgift wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Since Three felonies a day is true almost everywhere in the world it’s clearly risky behavior to interact with police. Of course police is usually helpful just like the rest of humans. Your local mafia clan are also nice people as long as you play by their rules (you can study organized crime in favelas where it is an ordering element similar to police).

The Three Felonies A Day is an example of politics, not research, and has some rather motivated reasoning:

https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/22530/does-the-...

I'm on your side. Please don't make our shared side weaker by using poor arguments.

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

#73

Post by heavenlyblue »

3pt14159 wrote: post #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 wit…

>> 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-co...

Makes me question everything else you are commenting here on.

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

#74

Post by yosamino »

sgift wrote: post #18
taneq wrote: 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.

People rarely see themselves as the bad guys. To understand people's motivations it's usually helpful to understand that they are just trying to do what they think is is best.

It's just that the disconnect between what is best for you, and what is in the interest of a member of the police often enough doesn't align, and this is the case everywhere, not specific to the US.

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

#75

Post by n4r9 »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #9

Sincere question: why is that not benevolent?

It might have benevolent intentions, but it's often very dangerous to put these technologies into the hands of law enforcement.

It reminds me of an incident in the UK a few years ago, when the Metropolitan (London) police trialed a facial recognition camera on the high street. One man reacted by covering up his face as he walked past. He was grabbed aside and ordered to remove the covering. When he responded angrily, he got fined £90 (=$115). It got caught on camera and gives me chills to this day.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/moment-police-fine-pe...

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

#76

Post by mattlondon »

emptybits wrote: post #4

FTA: 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…

What 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)

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

#77

Post by tempguy9999 »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #62
sgift wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 is extraordinarily bad advice. If the police knocks on your door to talk to you about your behaviour (or business, or family), then you should definitely get a lawyer as soon as possible, no matter where you live.

You may be projecting your quite reasonable concern about police in your country (the US?) onto everyone's situation. It's perhaps not wise trying to speak for everyone; let them speak for themselves. As a brit I'd be more laid back if this happened to me - and I can be very critical of our coppers!

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

#78

Post by mar77i »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #59
jjtheblunt wrote: post #9

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 c…

I 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.

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

#79

Post by tempguy9999 »

laumars wrote: post #70
jammygit wrote: post #50

“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?

First 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…

> 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.

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

#80

Post by sgift »

munmaek wrote: post #58
sgift wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

> 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 job of the police is to help me. To do that effectively they have to sometimes talk to me. It is therefore in my interest to talk to them.

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