As the impact of predictive analytics varies depending on the industry it’s applied to, I will focus mainly on its influence within the industry of law enforcement.
Predictive analytics is an emerging technology within law enforcement as its continual development and potential capabilities are still largely undefined. At the same time, predictive analytics progressively disrupts policing procedures as the technology pushes the bounds of traditional policing methods into new territories.
There’s no doubt policing practices are already experiencing disruptions from the emerging technology of predictive analytics as demonstrated from the success of the LAPD trials that focused on both crime control and management of the individual officer. This allowed the LAPD police organisation to embrace a precision policing model including; targeted policing decisions, improved budget allocation and improved policing knowledge. (Wilson 2019, p.74).
With police organisations being disrupted by predictive analytics, questions start to arise in society regarding the legitimacy in which impartiality is determined, for example, how do the algorithms that enable this capability operate and who owns the storage platforms that hold this data?
This question alone brings into debate data security, privacy laws, intentional and unintentional biases and social control. With this new technology emerging into law enforcement it’s imperative to understand the intentional and unintentional consequences of machine-learned decisions that can have both a positive and negative affect on society. In particular, it is essential for law enforcement to continually monitor and adapt this technology as it enters into mainstream practises to avoid undermining its original intention – to achieve a solution. (Sarah 2017).
The impact of predictive analytics applied to law enforcement will have a significant effect on police operations and the societies they support. For this reason, I rate predictive analytics a 4.5 out of 5 on the scale of emerging and disruptive technology in 2020 and beyond.
James Stevenson (Using computers to predict crime) discusses the impact of predictive analytics applied to policing in the TED Talk below.