Lawsuit: Boston PD's 'Gang Database' Says People Who Wear Nikes And Have Been Beat Up By Gang Members Are 'Gang Associates'

from the guilty-until-negatives-proven dept

The Chinese government uses a number of measures to keep tabs on citizens. One is what's known as a "citizen score" -- a compilation of all the good/bad habits the government can track that determines whether a person should be viewed as a contributor to society or someone the government should take out of circulation.

We do the same thing here in the US. Credit scores determine who gets to live where and what vehicle they can own. It also can affect employment opportunities. This version of a "citizen score" is compiled by private parties who have access to information Americans are given no choice in relinquishing.

But the government also uses point-based systems to determine what kind of citizen you are: one of the good OK guys or possible a menace II to society. The ACLU is currently suing the Boston Police Department over its ad hoc "citizen score." The BPD adds and subtracts points to add and (possibly?) subtract people from its "gang database." Things citizens actively do -- and even things they passively don't -- can put them on this watchlist.

From the ACLU's public records lawsuit [PDF]:

Under the point system, a person is designated as a "Gang Associate" if he is assessed six or more points, and a "Gang Member" if he is assessed ten or more points. See Exhibit A, Boston Police Department Rules and Procedures Rule 335.

The point system makes it possible to designate someone a Gang Associate or Gang Member without any allegation that he engaged in violence or criminal activity.

An individual may be assessed eight points for being the victim of gang-related violence.

Yes, you read that right: Boston residents magically become "Gang Associates" if they're shot at by gang members. Or carjacked. Or mugged. If this happens twice, it appears they'll be upgraded to "Gang Member" thanks to their inability to avoid being victimized by gang members.

There's more to the list -- things that assure plenty of other non-gang members will be treated like gang members by cops relying on this ridiculously-compiled database.

An individual may be assessed two points for each instance in which he is seen with an alleged gang member or associate, even in a photograph, and even if that alleged gang member or associate is a classmate, neighbor, or family member.

An individual may be assessed four points for each instance in which a police report describes him to have been "[w]alking, eating, recreating, communicating, or otherwise associating with" a gang member; for making a hand gesture believed to be a gang sign; and for wearing clothing that police deem to be gang-related.

Going to school that gang members attend: that's going to cost you. Being even distantly related to gang members? That's a few points.

If it wasn't all ridiculous enough already, here's the best part: cops can use calling a person a gang member to rack up points on the gangland score.

Other factors the BPD considers are circular. For example, an individual may be assessed eight points if another law enforcement agency determines he is a gang member, without regard to the evidence or criteria used, or nine points for being in possession of court or "investigative documents" that label him a gang member.

If a Boston resident is served with a summons from another law enforcement agency and it happens to say something about "suspected gang member" on them, that's nine points: "Gang Associate." If the documents say this designation was based on some sort of mystery database, that's 17 points and the full "Gang Member" designation with points to spare.

The ACLU's lawsuit is seeking a decision forcing the BPD to turn over documents on its gang database so the citizens affected by it can see what's being used to treat them as criminals, even when they haven't officially been accused of anything. As the suit notes, these designations -- based on bad/circular reasoning -- routinely ensnare people who've never been arrested, much less suspected of criminal activity. And yet, there they are, listed as associates or gang members in a database police officers have access to when making stops.

Just getting dressed in the morning is enough to turn someone's life upside down. The lawsuit points out the BPD has designated things like Chicago Bulls caps and Nike sneakers to be "gang apparel." Officers routinely surveil youths at parks, schools, and recreation centers -- places they're sure to see people wearing NBA merchandise and Nike shoes. And, because gang members are also human beings, they'll frequent public places to use those facilities, putting everyone else in the same location in danger of being deemed "gang associates."

The problems aren't just local. ICE has access to the BPD's database and makes deportation decisions based on this extremely faulty info.

The lawsuit pits the ACLU against the state with the most public-unfriendly public records laws in the nation. Overcoming the dozens of exemptions the BPD can use isn't going to be easy. Hopefully, though, the court will see the public interest outweighs the built-in excuses provided by the state's terrible laws and force the department to turn over the requested documents.

Filed Under: association, boston, boston police department, citizen score, gang database, gangs
Companies: aclue

Alibaba's Boss Says Chinese Government Should Use Big Data Techniques On Its 'Citizen Scores' Surveillance Store

from the and-here's-a-cloud-computing-platform-I-prepared-earlier dept

A year ago, Techdirt wrote about China's disturbing plan to create "citizen scores" that would rate everyone in the country on the basis of everything they do and say online. Although not much has been heard in the West about the scheme since then, that doesn't mean that the plan has been dropped. As the Washington Post reports:

A high-level policy document released in September listed the sanctions that could be imposed on any person or company deemed to have fallen short. The overriding principle: "If trust is broken in one place, restrictions are imposed everywhere."

A whole range of privileges would be denied, while people and companies breaking social trust would also be subject to expanded daily supervision and random inspections.

The ambition is to collect every scrap of information available online about China's companies and citizens in a single place -- and then assign each of them a score based on their political, commercial, social and legal "credit."

The article notes that it is not clear how the Chinese authorities intend to carry out this massive task. Although that might raise the hope that it will prove too hard to implement, one person who doesn't seem to share that view is Jack Ma, the founder and chairman of the Chinese Internet giant Alibaba. In a televised speech broadcast last week to 1.5 million security officials across China, Ma called for the government to apply big data's analytical techniques in fighting crime. Bloomberg Technology quoted him as saying:

Bad guys in a movie are identifiable at first glance, but how can the ones in real life be found? In the age of big data, we need to remember that our legal and security system with millions of members will also face change.

He gave a concrete example of how big data techniques could be used in this context (original in Chinese). He said that there was nothing suspicious about somebody buying a pressure cooker or a clock, nor anything suspicious about someone buying ball bearings. But if somebody buys all of them together, you have a suspicious pattern. His suggestion that data mining techniques applied to everyday purchases might help the authorities to spot these patterns and to stop criminals before they act -- a familiar enough idea -- indicates that he is thinking of China's plans to track every transaction from every shop as part of its "citizen scores" project.

Once that data is gathered, it would indeed be possible to start applying big data techniques as a matter of course in order to spot correlations -- something already being used on Internet data by the NSA and GCHQ. But Ma's suggestion is to go even further, and to analyze every digital breadcrumb people drop for possible significance when combined with more data points, whether their own or of others.

It's a chilling vision of total surveillance subject to constant, open-ended analysis, but it is certainly not a theoretical one. Ma's Alibaba group of companies includes Alibaba Cloud, which proudly proclaims its capabilities as follows:

China's largest and most trusted cloud services provider and the world's fourth largest website hosting provider.

Alibaba Cloud offers users the same cloud infrastructure that provides uninterrupted service to Alipay, an online payment service that can process a record-breaking 140,000 payments per second, and products that have broken records in anti-DDoS protection and database sorting.

That's just the sort of scale nationwide big data operations would require. As Bloomberg Technology points out, Ma's idea of applying some of that database sorting to catch the bad people is as much about money as morality:

Ma's speech also highlights the delicate relationship between Chinese web companies and the government. The ruling party has designated internet industry leaders as key targets for outreach, with President Xi Jinping saying in May last year that technology leaders should "demonstrate positive energy in purifying cyberspace."

Ma has said his policy for dealing with the government is to fall in love but not marry. His company has courted state clients, including the provincial governments of Zhejiang and Guizhou, for its cloud services.

Judging by his remarks to security officials, Ma seems happy to help with the cyber-purification -- especially if it might bring him some very lucrative government business for Alibaba Cloud along the way.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: big data, china, citizen score, jack ma, surveillance
Companies: alibaba