Police and local government are increasingly using risk assessment or ‘citizen-scoring’ algorithms to predict peoples future actions – including their likelihood of committing crimes in future.
Local councils spent £2m on contracts with the credit-scoring company Experian last year. Durham Constabulary also spent £10,000s on Experian’s ‘Mosaic’ data, which included profiles such as “Disconnected Youth”, “Asian Heritage” and “Dependent Greys”. Following our investigation and expose, Durham Constabulary stopped using the Experian profiling data.
New Statesman – How citizen-scoring algorithms are being used in the UK