Predictive Policing in Australia: the Technical, Legal, and Social Challenges
The Team: Dr Diarmaid Harkin, Prof Debi Ashenden, Dr Leonard Hoon, Prof Marilyn McMahon, Dr Thao Phan, Dr Tyson Yunkaporta, Dr Ian Warren, Dr Monique Mann
There is a global trend of police departments using algorithms and software-driven decision- making to target individuals or geographic places for law enforcement efforts. Known as ‘predictive policing’, there have been experiments with this technology in the United States, England, Germany, Switzerland, and China. This research project investigates the impact of software-driven decision-making within Australian policing. It offers an important policy perspective that brings together technical expertise from AI and cybersecurity, with law, criminology, and social scientists in Indigenous and technology studies. Public authorities within Australia are adopting algorithmic support and the field of law enforcement is a high-stakes domain where experimentation with this technology is questionable. It is of pressing importance that software which informs police decision-making is suitably scrutinised and critiqued.
The Team: Dr Diarmaid Harkin (lead CI, pictured), Prof Debi Ashenden, Dr Leonard Hoon, Prof Marilyn McMahon, Dr Thao Phan, Dr Tyson Yunkaporta, Dr Ian Warren, Dr Monique Mann
A collaboration between the Alfred Deakin Institute, the Applied Artificial Intelligence Institute, School of Business and Law, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Institute for Koori Education, and the Centre for Cyber Security