Police Using PDAs
from the positive-ID dept
Having seen Minority Report this weekend, forgive me if I sound a bit skeptical of the real benefits of equipping police with handheld computers to bring up pictures and information about people they stop on the street. While the system they're using currently just lets the police call up records (including images), they're also talking about adding a camera component which will do a facial recognition scan. These all sound like great ideas until you begin to question just how well do these systems work? I'm all for safer streets, but relying too much on the technology can be dangerous as well. We still have this image of technology as being somewhat infallible, and people begin to stop trusting their own common sense, and relying solely on what the technology tells them.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
