The pace of technological advancement is quickening to the point where the gap between science fiction and reality is being greatly reduced. Philip K. Dick explored the concept of pre-crime in his short story “The Minority Report” in 1956, but it wasn’t until Steven Spielberg offered it on the big screen as Minority Report in 2002 that the audience got a true look at a potential day-to-day existence under corporate and government data management and control.When police officers in Minority Report predicted who would commit crimes, and stopped them before they happened, it was considered so futuristic the film was set in 2054.
As if Germany doesn’t have a sordid enough history of implementing an omnipresent secret police, apparently they are prepared to give it a modern-day upgrade via crime predicting software that is directly based on Minority Report.
Developed by a German firm, the software program predicts when and where a crime is most likely to occur, based on different sets of data.The German Precobs system relies on data of the location, time and other details of past crimes, such as home break-ins.When a new incident is reported, the software analyses the data to look for a pattern that will point to a future target.
But Germany can’t lay claim to inventing this type of technology – it’s already being used in several areas of the United States.
Chicago’s “Heat List” is an index of approximately 400 people who have been identified by a computer algorithm as being future threats to commit violent crime. Without having actually committed a crime, some of those on the list have actually been visited by Chicago police warning them that they are being watched.
And in Arizona, mental health pre-crime systems are searching for people “near the breaking point.” The system can harvest everything from medical records to gun purchases to online posts,these units are being given the green light with new legislation to involuntarily detain those who are flagged.
Via Activist Post
Original Story Here