Kanagawa police eye AI-assisted predictive policing before Olympics

@Alfie Noakes

Never use you own ID for anything that you write that can be publically accessible across the Internet, unless you want it to be so.

@maybeperhapsyes

sounds like you got screwed mate!

Did you have insurance by the way? If you didnt hit the car why didnt you keep going?

Most people don't want to 'stick out' so, of course I can understand.

However, I find it difficult to imagine a judge not being able to examine evidence properly.....

And A simple phone call to any prison in Japan will most certainly give the answer that the majority of inmates are in fact, Japanese

Kurisupisu

Was advised by many people just to pay up and be done with it. Once the police make their decision that's pretty much it.

I have learned from this and have been in a position to assist the police on some matters but chose not to.

The 3 wise monkey's are right!

@kurisu & Blatta, do you have any links to those figures? There's a few local loudmouths I wouldn't mind educating!

@Blattamexiguus

But there seems to be endless moral panics about 'gaijin crime waves'

Nothing new obviously:

On 1st September 1923, a strong 7.9-magnitude earthquake struck the Kantō area of Japan, which includes Tokyo. False rumors about a ‘Korean revolt’ (chōsenjin sawagi)’—for instance, that Korean residents in Japan intended to poison the wells, or that Koreans were carrying bombs (in fact, apples)—spread around Tokyo, which was in a state of disorder due to the great earthquake. This led to a sudden wave of killings of Koreans in the disaster area, with more than 6,000 Korean people murdered at the hands of vigilante groups, police, and soldiers due to these rumors.

Absolutely.

Not only are foreigners statistically much less likely to offend than Japanese (eg. factor of x20 for Brits) but almost half of 'foreign crime' is simply work/visa violations which the Japanese can't do.

But there seems to be endless moral panics about 'gaijin crime waves'

maybeperhapsyes-

You should have refused and hired a lawyer!

And statistically foreigners in Japan have a lower rate of offending than Japanese so predicting crime using AI should lessen stop and search for foreigners-logically....

Lived here awhile but in the last few years after abe became the deat leader I have had two harassments from police. before about 2 years ago. I never had any negative experience living in Japan of harassment from police but it seems almost every week and I don't do anything wrong.

AI is racial profiling.

Everyone knows traffic cops do nothing all year at accident blackspots, but will set up speed traps on straight roads through paddy fields when "Road Safety Week" comes around.

That's how much they care about actually predicting "where accidents are likely to take place" and taking action.

@wanderlust

Dude. I had the same reaction when I showed them my helmet cam video of me NOT hitting the back of a K-car (full of construction types) as they had stated I did.

Result: Me having to pay 57,000 yen to the owner...despite not even hitting them.

You could not make this up!

This AI thing will have us all in the station for hours having to recall our wearabouts.

Not a good thing at all.

@ sensei258 pls read my above comment.

Didn't Tom Cruise make a movie like this where he worked in the "pre-crimes division"? They used some clairvoyant beings combined with AI to arrest people before they even committed crimes

@maybeperhapsyes - similar stories in the same Kanagawa. Witnessed a car crash from behind, offered a statement clearing one of the drivers to the police who spent their time asking all about me, where I lived and my job, writing my details in their little notebok in pencil, whilst ignoring the car drivers. On a second occasion, my drive recorder captured a highly detailed video of a car crossing the dual carriageway, hitting another car head-on and putting 4 people into hospital. Took the video to the police station who just told me to come back later. When I went back at 1 in the morning, they did not know how to copy it into their police system (USB Stick), so I spent 30 minutes on the police dept. PC uploading it. Again, lots of questions on my existence, nothing about the video!

I guess I was disturbing their harmony!

There seems to be an obsession in Japan that an increase in foriegn visitors equates to an increase in crime.

minority report = predictive programming.

If the AI suspected you are a criminal it means the data entered (by humans) is set so that you are a criminal.

Say, for example, the Kanagawa Police programmer is told to enter “foreign” faces as possible criminals, then a foreigner will be suspected as a criminal. In programming parlance this is Garbage In Garbage Out.

If, on the other hand, the programmer is told to enter Known Criminals’ faces, then Criminals will be suspected of being criminals.

I forsee not a few Olympics visitors being detained for “volunteer questioning” about a spate of crimes.

The statement criticized the system for allegedly promoting prejudice against certain communities and residents.

This seems like something the police would want to do. If an AI suspected you're a criminal, given the conviction rate here in Japan, that's what the police will see you as/believe you are and will innocently be in a tough situation.

Given the lack of scruples here and the blatant disregard of human rights and privacy, this is pretty scary stuff. Japan would be the perfect candidate to take this to '1984' levels...

Ok...scared now.

I live in this prefecture and any contact I've had with the police has never been positive.

Once stopped a drunk man from getting back into his car at a store having just bought a six pack. Made a kind of citizens arrest and told the staff to call the bizzies. The staff refused at first, but when the police did come...they spent most of the time ascertaining who I was and checking my I.D.

I no longer "get involved" (Shame really...ex job myself and feel I always have to do the right thing)

This AI stuff is still in it's infancy and open to abuse too.

As I said...scared now.

It may also use information from social media.

Boom! There it is, exactly what Edward Snowden was warning about last year and what everyone saw coming with the Conspiracy Bill and the NSA giving XKEYSCORE to Japan: total surveillance, all the time.

"Based on his experience of using XKEYSCORE, Snowden said the authorities will eventually be able to intercept everyone’s communications, including people who are organizing political movements or protests, and put them “in a bucket.”

The records would be simply “pulled out of the bucket” whenever necessary and the public would not be able to know whether the activities are being undertaken legally or secretly by the government because there are no sufficient legal safeguards in the bill, Snowden said."

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/06/01/national/japan-close-ushering-new-wave-mass-surveillance-snowden-warns/

Japan is well on the way to becoming the world's greatest ever surveillance state, something that would have made the Stasi proud.

Imagine that, coupled with a 99% conviction rate.

The predictive policing method has been in use in the United States, where critics worry about human rights infringements.

The whole US policing method approach should worry everyone about human rights infringements.

The statement criticized the system for allegedly promoting prejudice against certain communities and residents.

100% correct. In the US it'll have police patrolling minority neighborhoods, while here in Japan, I'm going to guess that anywhere where there is a foreign diaspora of any sort.