Big Data means Minority Report pre-crime has arrived!

In the opening scene of the movie, Minority Report, Chief of Special Police John Anderton bursts in to a suburban house moments before Howard Marks plunges a pair of scissors in to his wife. As he arrests Marks he says, "By mandate of the District of Colombia Precrime Division, I'm placing you under arrest for the future murder of Sarah Marks."

Now in this futuristic movie, three clairvoyants are responsible for predictions of crime which are so accurate they lead to police arresting individuals before they actually commit them. However, in reality the only powers required are computer ones rather than those of the extra sensory variety, and today big data analysis is already threatening to bring about judgement of guilt based on future behaviour.

Sceptical? 

Well, parole boards in more than half of all US states are using predictions founded on big data analysis as a factor whether to release someone or keep them locked up.

And a growing number of cities in the US are using big data analysis to employ 'predictive policing', selecting what times, streets, groups and individuals to subject to extra scrutiny, simply because an algorithm pointed to them committing more crime.

And in Richmond Virginia, they correlate crime data with information on when companies in the city pay their employees, dates of concerts, sport events, gun shows (crime spiked two weeks after a gun show) and many other datasets to deploy scarce police resources. 

Don't forget big data analysis is about taking it down to the granular level and identifying the individual, it's not simply profiling. Why do you think Homeland Security wants all that data?

So you may be thinking this is all rather splendid but isn't it just a little bit scary because it doesn't allow for free will – the guy who gets out of the ghetto, the parolee who goes straight, the juvenile who doesn't turn out to be a delinquent. With big data the algorithm has already made a judgement and society too.

Who would not have been delighted if big data analysis had identified the individuals responsible for 9/11 or 7/7, before they committed those evil atrocities but as the analysis of big data becomes ever more pervasive and sophisticated, it's going to throw up some serious questions for us all.