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The Police Data Accessibility Project

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Re: The Police Data Accessibility Project

#41

Post by dvtrn »

chrisco255 wrote: post #39
jwilber wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that that is a very valid concern. I’d hope the data is anonymized (even though I recognize anonymized data is not perfect).

You are also opening yourself up to severe defamation lawsuits by publishing any information that is incorrect.

How would that claim work unless one is shown to have altered a public record provided by a court? I’d think such a claim would be dismissed upon as much as one review of discovery if it’s shown that you lawfully obtained the records and otherwise didn’t tamper with said records.

Edit: or am I thinking of libel?

Re: The Police Data Accessibility Project

#44

Post by chrisco255 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #37
chrisco255 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each jurisdiction differs on this dramatically. But the law enforcement system is quite different from some random GitHub repo.

I unaware of any legal authority one could use to remove public information from GitHub, even after expungement of the public record itself. These are not works covered under copyright that a DMCA takedown notice would apply to. You’re still correct that datasets such as these might need to be globally distributed, instead of hosted with a single commercial provider.

Criminal records are owned by the jurisdiction which served the case. These are governed by state and federal laws. You are also subject to severe defamation lawsuits and anyone contributing to this repo can be held personally culpable. This is not about copyright.

EDIT I'm not going to do your legal homework for you, but this is South Carolina, for example. As stated above, each of the 50 United States has various laws and regulations with regards to arrest and criminal records. Violate those laws at your own risk, but if a lawyer is not being involved in this project on an ongoing basis, I highly recommend anyone to avoid: https://www.scjustice.org/criminal-records-come-back-haunt-e...

That's just about respecting expungement (30 day notice must takedown). If you improperly record or transcode the data from the scrape and that results in someone being attributed to something that the record never showed, you are subject to full weight of defamation lawsuits. If you unwittingly expose someone's private information that is involved in witness protection, for example, you can be subject to legal and civil penalties: https://www.gsa.gov/reference/gsa-privacy-program/rules-and-...

Re: The Police Data Accessibility Project

#45

Post by tick_tock_tick »

psychometry wrote: post #10
toomuchtodo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What law would be violated? What law would one use to infringe freedom of speech to continue to publish these records as a private citizen? Failing all else, one can host outside the jurisdiction.

Records can be expunged, sometimes automatically per plea agreements. And yet these records would live on in this dataset.

That has no impact on what a private citizen can publish. If someone assaulted someone 20 year ago but legally got the record expunged you are absolutely allowed to publish full page newspaper ads every day talking about the assault.

Re: The Police Data Accessibility Project

#46

Post by primitivesuave »

nradov wrote: post #19
primitivesuave wrote: post #8

I submitted a FOIA request last year for all parking citations issued in San Francisco. The data was truly extraordinary and showed clearly how simple street sweeping citations could lead to a car being towed, auctioned, and the owner (whose name/license plate is publicly listed if they overpaid or paid a citation twice [1]) losing their business and eventually moving elsewhere. I decided against publishing my resear…

The unfortunate reality is that parking tickets are just a cost of doing business in any dense city. When you have appointments to keep you simply can't circle the block until a parking space opens up. But that means businesses have to charge customers enough to cover the ticket cost, and then actually pay the tickets rather than letting them accumulate.

As someone who has probably lost a day of each year roaming San Francisco looking for parking, I wholeheartedly agree with you that punitive measures are the only way to keep people from occupying limited parking spaces beyond certain limits. However, my qualm is with arbitrary citations like street sweeping, missing front license plates (some cars only have one on the back), and numerous other petty citations that the average tech worker has no problem paying off, while leaving the hospitality worker or small business owner in a state of bankruptcy after a single unlucky sequence of events.

Re: The Police Data Accessibility Project

#47

Post by tick_tock_tick »

linsomniac wrote: post #3

Someone told me the other day that they had investigated the Minneapolis police blotter, after the reporting that the majority of people arrested were from out of state. That investigation turned up that the blotter didn't agree, and shortly after it was revealed the police issued an apology. Denver made a similar report, but have not made their arrest records public, for some reason...

The Minneapolis Mayor said that he later apologized after people looked up public arrest records that showed 80+% were from Minneapolis itself. The Mayor gave some dismissing report that he got it from the police department.

Re: The Police Data Accessibility Project

#48

Post by ericwood »

linsomniac wrote: post #3

Someone told me the other day that they had investigated the Minneapolis police blotter, after the reporting that the majority of people arrested were from out of state. That investigation turned up that the blotter didn't agree, and shortly after it was revealed the police issued an apology. Denver made a similar report, but have not made their arrest records public, for some reason...

Denver also, as of last year, encrypts its police channels, which makes any sort of outsider oversight impossible.

Re: The Police Data Accessibility Project

#49

Post by philmcc »

primitivesuave wrote: post #8

I submitted a FOIA request last year for all parking citations issued in San Francisco. The data was truly extraordinary and showed clearly how simple street sweeping citations could lead to a car being towed, auctioned, and the owner (whose name/license plate is publicly listed if they overpaid or paid a citation twice [1]) losing their business and eventually moving elsewhere. I decided against publishing my resear…

Lately I've been looking for data sets like this. I was hoping to do an analysis of citations, related to race, related to race of arresting officer, all against the backdrop of the racial profile of the county/city.

I have my preconceived notions of what I'd find, but I think it'd be better to let the data speak for itself.

My email address is just philip at mccarty at gmail, and I would be happy to talk to you on phone/skype/zoom so you can see if you feel comfortable with me using the data for that purpose.

Or we could find a way to anonymize the data, as the personally identifying information isn't necessary for my analysis at all.

Re: The Police Data Accessibility Project

#50

Post by scaredtobeme »

mcbutterbunz wrote: post #5
linsomniac wrote: post #3

Someone told me the other day that they had investigated the Minneapolis police blotter, after the reporting that the majority of people arrested were from out of state. That investigation turned up that the blotter didn't agree, and shortly after it was revealed the police issued an apology. Denver made a similar report, but have not made their arrest records public, for some reason...

Denver is so far from any other major city outside of their state. Do they expect us to believe that there are hordes of people from Colby, Kansas that drove for hours just to riot? Minneapolis is reasonable considering its the epicenter of the current issue and reasonable driving distance from Wisconsin.

What's so different between Minneapolis and Wisconsin that hordes of Wisconsinites would come to town to do things that Minneapolans would never do? That seems implausible, at least to a know-nothing outsider like me.
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