Predictive Policing with Johannes Heiler and Dr Miri Zilka

Declarations: The Human Rights Podcast

For this week’s episode, host Maryam Tanwir and panelist Nanna Sæten speak about predictive policing with Johannes Heiler, Adviser on Anti-Terrorism Issues at the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and Miri Zilka, Research Associate in the Machine Learning Group at the University of Cambridge. Predictive policing leverages the techniques of statistics and machine learning for the purpose of predicting crime. The human rights perspective provides several interesting questions for the use of predictive policing; as the technology functions today, it seems to perpetuate already existing bias in police work, but could this be overcome? Using technology for the purpose of police work necessitates questions of who is responsible for the protection of human rights and how to decide on who's human rights to uphold in the case of conflict. What is clear to both of our guests is that there needs to be clear channels of oversight if human rights are to be protected in digitized law enforcement.