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.

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