Inspired by several foreign countries, French police will test an artificial intelligence designed to predict crowd movements. The project recalls Steven Spielberg’s film Minority Report, whose effectiveness and consequences for privacy remain debated.
Adapted from a novel, the film features “Precrime,” a unit capable of predicting crimes and preventing them before they happen. Tom Cruise is accused of a crime he has not yet committed, and much of the plot involves demonstrating that this system can be wrong.
Today, it is now law enforcement agencies in several countries that are interested in predictive policing, an approach that aims to anticipate violence using artificial intelligence. Software analyzes social media, surveillance cameras, criminal records, and even weather reports to identify conditions likely to cause public disorder. The information is then transmitted in real time to a patrol, which can go to potential hotspots or exercise increased vigilance.
The United States is among the countries testing this type of technology, as is Argentina, which has even created a special unit dedicated to AI. France, for its part, plans to test its own algorithm, called Smart Police.
Effectiveness still uncertain
According to the article, the technology does not work very well at the moment, and the cases of flagrante delicto it enables remain virtually nil. In the face of a riot, the unpredictability and resulting chaos make anticipation even more difficult. The clustering of calls on social media to target one brand over another can indicate a trend, but nothing concrete, according to the text.
Despite figures sometimes cited, no real study exists to prove that this kind of software has made police more effective. For now, AI appears more as an aid than a tool capable of stopping a gathering. In this case, the curfew is still mentioned as the recourse.
Individual freedom and privacy
The line between the use of the tool and the protection of privacy is, according to the article, very fine. The text mentions the “Person of Interest effect,” a reference considered perhaps more credible than Minority Report, involving mass surveillance that would escape real control, especially when AI scans social media.
Associations denounce the risk of “illegal profiling.” They also worry about the possibility that the AI could quickly become biased and focus solely on certain neighborhoods or certain categories of the population.
