The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/science-technology/)
“Bad Samaritan” laws hold individuals criminally accountable for failing to report certain offenses, and they impose a responsibility to assist someone in danger. But what happens if the crimes take place in cyberspace?
A state advisory board in California has recommended that police agencies routinely review the cell phones, computers and social media pages of police officers for racist and otherwise offensive content in an effort to weed out officers who are prone to racial profiling.
The ACLU is suing the FBI following the discovery of public court documents and records that indicate the FBI Electronic Device Analysis Unit can bypass encrypted cell phone information. If true, the ACLU says this will “severely undermine our digital privacy and security.”
Advanced software that can analyze degraded or low-quality DNA evidence has become a valuable new tool for investigators. Despite criticism from some about its reliability, its impact on solving cases is hard to deny, writes a forensic scientist.
A recent report from the Washington, D.C. nonprofit Upturn highlights the privacy and civil rights concerns arising from the use of mobile device forensic tools by U.S. law enforcement agencies.
What has been called the largest crime lab scandal in U.S. history received another jolt last week with a Boston Globe report that the office of Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins in Massachusetts is examining the work of another chemist.
Smartphones have transformed accountability, but other high-tech tools such as crime-tracking software and facial recognition can encourage “toxic” police behavior. That’s why we should take a hard look at the intersection of technology and law enforcement, writes the director of Criminal Justice and Civil Liberties Policy at the R Street Institute.
A group of criminologists and law professors challenged a new report by the Pretrial Justice Institute contending that pretrial risk assessment instruments are dangerous. “The benchmark here is not perfection but improving upon unaided human judgment, which is universally acknowledged to introduce racial and other biases,” the group said in an open letter.
A database in New York City holds genetic markers of more than 1,600 minors, many of whom have not committed crimes. Advocates and lawmakers have teamed up to stop what one calls a “rogue” operation, but police say their fears are overblown.
A United Nations committee on racial discrimination found that the use of facial recognition and other algorithm-driven technologies for law enforcement and immigration control may risk deepening racism and xenophobia and could lead to human rights violations.