Justice
How the Cutting Edge in Crowdsourced Crime Fighting Could Do More Harm Than Good
Police in London want you to help hunt for pick-pocketers with your smart phone. It's an idea with serious flaws.
People have been crowdsourcing crime-fighting ever since the advent of the wanted ad. You know the kind: Here’s a blurry face, or maybe a sketch artist’s rendering of one. Have you seen this guy recently? Police are looking for him.
There’s nothing terribly offensive about such posters, which are more synonymous with the Old West than Big Brother. But what if you take photos of thousands of suspects – not just society’s worst offenders, but its pick-pocketers and purse thieves – and upload them to millions of smart phones? Police in London are actually doing this now, with an app called “Facewatch” that pushes the concept of crowdsourced criminal justice into some creepy new territory.