Latest news with #SofiaLyall
Euronews
11-04-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
Can governments stop killings before they happen? UK explores creating 'murder prediction' programme
ADVERTISEMENT The UK government is studying whether they can develop a 'murder prediction' programme that will use police and government data to decide how likely someone is to kill, new research has found. Information for the project was gathered through several freedom of information (FOI) requests filed by Statewatch, a UK-based civil liberties and human rights charity. The UK's Ministry of Justice (MOJ) wrote to Statewatch that the Homicide Prediction Project is a study to "review offender characteristics that increase the risk of committing homicide," and to "explore the power" of various datasets from the Police National Computer and Manchester Police to assess homicide risk. Related Prisoners in Finland are being employed as data labellers to improve accuracy of AI models The MOJ assessed several databases to look at personal and criminal history data, assessments completed by probation officers on motivation, need and risk, incident data, alerts and custody information for inmates who had at least one conviction before January 1, 2015. "This work is for research purposes only," the FOI response to Statewatch reads, noting that any assessments will not affect any judicial outcomes. "No direct operational or policy changes will come as a result," it added. Yet, the data protection assessment said a final report with a reflection on "future operationalistion and/or policy development based on the work" would be produced. 'Deeply wrong' Sofia Lyall, a researcher with Statewatch, said the project will "reinforce and magnify the structural discriminal underpinning the criminal legal system". "Building an automated tools to profile people as violent criminals is deeply wrong, and using such sensitive data on mental health, addiction and disability is highly intrusive and alarming," she continued. Related Algorithm used in Catalan prisons has 'substantial deficiencies,' audit finds Lyall asked the minister of justice to "immediately halt" the development of this tool and instead to "invest in genuinely supportive welfare services". Euronews Next reached out to the MOJ to clarify what the project's intended goals are and whether it would be further developed but did not receive an immediate reply.
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Can governments stop killings before they happen? UK explores creating 'murder prediction' programme
The UK government is studying whether they can develop a 'murder prediction' programme that will use police and government data to decide how likely someone is to kill, new research has found. Information for the project was gathered through several freedom of information (FOI) requests filed by Statewatch, a UK-based civil liberties and human rights charity. The UK's Ministry of Justice (MOJ) wrote to Statewatch that the Homicide Prediction Project is a study to "review offender characteristics that increase the risk of committing homicide," and to "explore the power" of various datasets from the Police National Computer and Manchester Police to assess homicide risk. Related Prisoners in Finland are being employed as data labellers to improve accuracy of AI models The MOJ assessed several databases to look at personal and criminal history data, assessments completed by probation officers on motivation, need and risk, incident data, alerts and custody information for inmates who had at least one conviction before January 1, 2015. "This work is for research purposes only," the FOI response to Statewatch reads, noting that any assessments will not affect any judicial outcomes. "No direct operational or policy changes will come as a result," it added. Yet, the data protection assessment said a final report with a reflection on "future operationalistion and/or policy development based on the work" would be produced. Sofia Lyall, a researcher with Statewatch, said the project will "reinforce and magnify the structural discriminal underpinning the criminal legal system". "Building an automated tools to profile people as violent criminals is deeply wrong, and using such sensitive data on mental health, addiction and disability is highly intrusive and alarming," she continued. Related Algorithm used in Catalan prisons has 'substantial deficiencies,' audit finds Lyall asked the minister of justice to "immediately halt" the development of this tool and instead to "invest in genuinely supportive welfare services". Euronews Next reached out to the MOJ to clarify what the project's intended goals are and whether it would be further developed but did not receive an immediate reply.
Euronews
09-04-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
Can governments stop killings before they happen? UK explores 'murder prediction' data programme
ADVERTISEMENT The UK government is studying whether they can develop a 'murder prediction' programme that will use police and government data to decide how likely someone is to kill, new research has found. Information for the project was gathered through several freedom of information (FOI) requests filed by Statewatch , a UK-based civil liberties and human rights charity. The UK's Ministry of Justice (MOJ) wrote to Statewatch that the Homicide Prediction Project is a study to 'review offender characteristics that increase the risk of committing homicide,' and to 'explore the power' of various datasets from the Police National Computer and Manchester Police to assess homicide risk. Related Prisoners in Finland are being employed as data labellers to improve accuracy of AI models The MOJ assessed several databases to look at personal and criminal history data, assessments completed by probation officers on motivation, need and risk, incident data, alerts and custody information for inmates who had at least one conviction before January 1, 2015. 'This work is for research purposes only,' the FOI response to Statewatch reads , noting that any assessments will not affect any judicial outcomes. 'No direct operational or policy changes will come as a result,' it added. Yet, the data protection assessment said a final report with a reflection on 'future operationalistion and/or policy development based on the work' would be produced. 'Deeply wrong' Sofia Lyall, a researcher with Statewatch, said the project will 'reinforce and magnify the structural discriminal underpinning the criminal legal system'. 'Building an automated tools to profile people as violent criminals is deeply wrong, and using such sensitive data on mental health, addiction and disability is highly intrusive and alarming,' she continued. Related Algorithm used in Catalan prisons has 'substantial deficiencies,' audit finds Lyall asked the minister of justice to 'immediately halt' the development of this tool and instead to 'invest in genuinely supportive welfare services'. Euronews Next reached out to the MOJ to clarify what the project's intended goals are and whether it would be further developed but did not receive an immediate reply.
The Guardian
08-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
UK creating ‘murder prediction' tool to identify people most likely to kill
The UK government is developing a 'murder prediction' programme which it hopes can use personal data of those known to the authorities to identify the people most likely to become killers. Researchers are alleged to be using algorithms to analyse the information of thousands of people, including victims of crime, as they try to identify those at greatest risk of committing serious violent offences. The scheme was originally called the 'homicide prediction project', but its name has been changed to 'sharing data to improve risk assessment'. The Ministry of Justice hopes the project will help boost public safety but campaigners have called it 'chilling and dystopian'. The existence of the project was discovered by the pressure group Statewatch, and some of its workings uncovered through documents obtained by Freedom of Information requests. Statewatch says data from people not convicted of any criminal offence will be used as part of the project, including personal information about self-harm and details relating to domestic abuse. Officials strongly deny this, insisting only data about people with at least one guilty conviction has been used. The government says the project is at this stage for research only, but campaigners claim the data used would build bias into the predictions against minority-ethnic and poor people. The MoJ says the scheme will 'review offender characteristics that increase the risk of committing homicide' and 'explore alternative and innovative data science techniques to risk assessment of homicide'. The project would 'provide evidence towards improving risk assessment of serious crime, and ultimately contribute to protecting the public via better analysis', a spokesperson added. The project, which was commissioned by the prime minister's office when Rishi Sunak was in power, is using data about crime from various official sources including the Probation Service and data from Greater Manchester police before 2015. The types of information processed includes names, dates of birth, gender and ethnicity, and a number that identifies people on the police national computer. Statewatch's claim that data from innocent people and those who have gone to the police for help will be used is based on a part of the data-sharing agreement between the MoJ and GMP. A section marked: 'type of personal data to be shared' by police with the government includes various types of criminal convictions, but also listed is the age a person first appeared as a victim, including for domestic violence, and the age a person was when they first had contact with police. Also to be shared – and listed under 'special categories of personal data' - are 'health markers which are expected to have significant predictive power', such as data relating to mental health, addiction, suicide and vulnerability, and self-harm, as well as disability. Sofia Lyall, a researcher for Statewatch, said: 'The Ministry of Justice's attempt to build this murder prediction system is the latest chilling and dystopian example of the government's intent to develop so-called crime 'prediction' systems. 'Time and again, research shows that algorithmic systems for 'predicting' crime are inherently flawed. 'This latest model, which uses data from our institutionally racist police and Home Office, will reinforce and magnify the structural discrimination underpinning the criminal legal system. 'Like other systems of its kind, it will code in bias towards racialised and low-income communities. Building an automated tools to profile people as violent criminals is deeply wrong, and using such sensitive data on mental health, addiction and disability is highly intrusive and alarming.' A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: 'This project is being conducted for research purposes only. It has been designed using existing data held by HM Prison and Probation Service and police forces on convicted offenders to help us better understand the risk of people on probation going on to commit serious violence. A report will be published in due course.' Officials say the prison and probation service already use risk assessment tools, and this project will see if adding in new data sources, from police and custody data, would improve risk assessment.
