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Science & Technology

New police software can predict future crimes

By T.K. Randall
December 8, 2014 · Comment icon 17 comments

Can a computer predict crimes before they happen ? Image Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0 Junior Melo
Authorities in Berlin are considering a system that can predict crimes like in the movie Minority Report.
The concept uses special software that draws information from several sources of data to produce a realistic prediction of when and where a crime is most likely to occur.

The system is named "Precobs" ( Pre-Crime Observation System ) in a deliberate nod to the term "precog" used in the Steven Spielberg movie Minority Report which also explored the idea of stopping crimes before they happen.
The real-life crime predicting software was developed by the Institute for pattern-based Prediction Technique in Oberhausen and looks at a number of factors to help it predict the next incident including the time and date of past crimes in a specific area.

The initial results of a trial to predict burglaries in Munich and Nuremberg were deemed "promising" however it isn't clear whether the system will ever see mainstream use.

Source: Phys.org | Comments (17)




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Recent comments on this story
Comment icon #8 Posted by Foil Hat Ninja 9 years ago
Philip Dick's story was really more of a warning than a suggestion.
Comment icon #9 Posted by Xanthurion2 9 years ago
Why don't they just make crime illegal?
Comment icon #10 Posted by The Id3al Experience 9 years ago
Question - If it predicts crime. Will they wait for the crime to happen before prosecution. And if they do that, whats different to now? other than police time being quicker because they kinda know? If its murder prediction, and you didn't stop the criminal - are the police now to blame? If your arrested first, without doing the crime - can you do the time. What of free will, even though the machine predicts this, the person could change there mind! To many things wrong with this. Will be very interesting to see how accurate it is. I fear for the world our children will be brought up in.
Comment icon #11 Posted by spartan max2 9 years ago
This leads me to have so many questions and this article gives me almost no answers
Comment icon #12 Posted by wokko 9 years ago
It is coming this technology and maybe is being used for different objects... The stuff we don't hear about or not to be known by the general public.
Comment icon #13 Posted by Misanthropic 9 years ago
Just flood the air space with camera equipped drone's. Might as well equip them with gun's too. Prevent crime by knowing EXACTLY what John Q citizen is doing 24/7. If he gets out of line, bang!
Comment icon #14 Posted by Tokoloshe 9 years ago
Does that include all different types of crime...?hahaha
Comment icon #15 Posted by Junior Chubb 9 years ago
I wonder if it could help them out with this crime... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30380970 Well it is probably quite easy to locate and predict
Comment icon #16 Posted by taniwha 9 years ago
Why don't they just make crime illegal? Yes smart move. They should also remove crime from the dictionary, what we dont know cant hurt.
Comment icon #17 Posted by ovakynd 9 years ago
cool !!


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