The French version of PredPol is about to arrive in France: good or bad news ?

French version of PredPol :

Friday, September 30, two thousand and twenty-two

The French version of PredPol is about to arrive in France: good or bad news ?

Long used by the Los Angeles police, the PredPol algorithm is being studied by the Quai des Orfèvres for a possible application in Paris next fall.

After several discussions, the most skeptical pros and police officers, the following points emerged.

The pros at PredPol say the process is totally revolutionary, the database including location, time and procedure of the crime could eventually solve a case, it's certainly a valuable working tool. Thanks to this algorithm, many crimes could be avoided. In the United States, the program is 25-30% more specific as to where the crime is going to occur.

Police officers less convinced of the effectiveness of the algorithm speak of an invasion of privacy such as monitoring social networks with particular types of profiles, it is in a way discrimination. The algorithm can make mistakes and cannot predict future crimes one hundred percent, it can be right but also wrong.

My point of view on the subject is that a police investigation brings together all the details and when a serial killer has committed several murders, there is no need for software to analyze his procedure.

In the end, anything that can help solve a police investigation is good. I am for this algorithm to be implemented in France, it would reduce the number of crimes. I am for it on condition that there is no discrimination because there are already a lot of them, such as facies crime which are very present these days in the streets of Paris. The police often judge people based on their style of dress, skin color and way of speaking. It is an injustice for these people. To conclude, PredPol is a revolutionary algorithm provided there is no discrimination.