Predictive policing algorithms already operate across at least eight countries’ agencies.

Evidence

Software is being used by police to predict reoffending and crime distribution in a number of countries (especially the United States and China, with experiments reported in Israel, Canada, the Nether lands, and the United Kingdom). In the United Kingdom, algorithms are being used by cash-strapped local governments to assess which children need protection from child abuse. Powerful new networks are being built to “connect devices, apps, and people for more than half of the [US’s] major city police agencies,” with Axon AI being a leading network provider and Palantir (the company of Peter Theil, a Facebook board member) being a leading provider of analytics software. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 445

Categorization

• SHARE: The Palantir-Axon infrastructure fact is a crisp, named-example nugget for someone tracking surveillance firms.
• QUESTION: How far has police-algorithm adoption spread since this book’s 2019 publication, especially in the UK and EU?