A written report released Thursdaydetails the massive , complexpolice databases that local jurisprudence enforcement in LA and Massachusetts practice to investigate suspect . Through a service known as COPLINK , the storehouses of data point that local constabulary use during investigations are being shared with a partition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement , Homeland Security Investigations . While methamphetamine representative in the account note the utility of the package , several concealment , immigration , and civil shore leave advocates question both the accuracy of the package and the use of data to survey hoi polloi .
COPLINK meld information from multiple police databases , and then allows law enforcement to sort and filter through them in the line of their investigations . Injustice Today look back written document from the Massachusetts and LA versions of the syllabus . The LA version conflate information from the Los Angeles , San Gabriel , and Pasadena departments , while the Massachusetts interlingual rendition practice Boston , Somerville , and Cambridge police force department .
Using COPLINK , law enforcement can search through enormous amounts of data on citizenry , some of whom have contact with police but no convictions . Police can search race , hair color , eye color , skin color , ethnicity , country of origin , and even tattoo and other distinguish Saint Mark on their bodies . Once selected , law enforcement can separate and expose a person ’s “ associational data , ” data on other masses connected with the person , with the option to literally represent out the person ’s life by showing their electronic connection of friends and associate , vehicles , and governing body .
Privacy expert train again this type of surveillance because it ’s potential to be include in both the local police and thus COPLINK databases without ever being convict of a crime . And because of family social structure , employment and bare geography , it ’s exclusively potential to be “ consort ” with a bunch phallus or suspect without having ever been convict of a law-breaking yourself .
“ If someone from ICE HSI searched for gang members in Massachusetts , that person does n’t necessarily recognize if someone has been identified as a gang extremity by a Somerville police functionary just because they had a hunch or by a Waltham police officer because they killed three people , ” Kade Crockford , head of the ACLU of Massachusetts ’s Technology for Liberty Program , told Injustice . “ There ’s a flattening that take place , where allegations by local police who may have no idea what they ’re talking about , of a sudden look the same as allegement of real violence . ”
The full report details how the “ flattening ” of data — and how it ’s share across territory — produce a veneer of objectivity in the reports . Gang databases can be inaccurate , however ( the California database have famously namedseveral toddlersas gang members ) but they ’re rarely audited for accuracy . Immigrants and people of color ante up the price for untrue positives and misidentification if the software is defective , not vendors or engineers .
“ For them , it ’s good if a gang of innocent people get apprehended than letting one guilty somebody go detached , ” Sarah Stokes , an immigration attorney with the Boston University School of Law , tell Injustice .
[ Injustice Today ]
AI / Ethics
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