Minority Report system unleashed on British families

Once the stuff of science-fiction, ‘predictive analytics’ is now a frightening reality for families in several parts of the UK, where Child Protective Services are testing a ‘Minority Report’ system to prevent child abuse.
Anyone familiar with the ‘Minority Report’ movie will remember the basic idea - predicting a crime before it happens. Local authorities in Hackney, Thurrock, Newham, Bristol and Brent have been implementing a system based on massive collection of data on private individuals used to predict which families fit the profile of child abusers. So far, personal data of over 370,000 people have been fed to computers - and in this case invasion of privacy is the least of these people’s problems. The main worry is that the computers might decide you’re a potential abuser and send social workers to your door just because your kid missed a couple of days in school and you happen to have an unpaid bill. Seriously, the data collected refer to school attendance, police reports on ‘antisocial behavior’ and domestic violence, as well as housing association repairs and arrears. Tick two of their boxes and that’s it, you’re labeled a potential child abuser and treated as such. The moment the social workers show up on your doorstep I’m afraid you’ll have a hard time convincing them that pale bruise on his forehead was caused by a simple fall on the swings, as you're already a suspect.

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Authorities in two of the above districts have reported hundreds of alerts being issued by the computer system. That is hundreds of families under scrutiny for something they might do.
As always, the main reason for implementing this nightmarish system is money. Under UK government plans, local authorities are to lose 16 billion pounds in government founding by 2020. That’s quite a lot of money. Fortunately for them, there’s also a Troubled Families 'payments by results' scheme. Under this scheme, a local council receives 1000 pounds for each family ‘enrolled’ with the program, plus 800 pounds when the family meets certain criteria. That’s 1800 pounds for every new troubled family the social workers can go harassing‘ helping. Nice incentive! And let’s not mention the money received for every child put in foster care.

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Returning to the kind of data collected and fed to the system, it’s easy to figure just how many families can have their lives turned upside down by potential abuser alerts.
Domestic violence is a valid concern, but antisocial behavior is quite vague.
According to Wikipedia

Anti-social behaviour as acting in a manner that has "caused or was likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons not of the same household" as the perpetrator. There has been debate concerning the vagueness of this definition.

Telling a neighbor to go to Hell after a dispute over a parking lot is antisocial behavior. Increasingly, what we post on social media is monitored and can be deemed as antisocial. (In a recent case for instance, the UK police has threatened to fine all those posting negative comments on their page!)
I don’t have any experience with the above issues, but housing association arrears - I’m a pro at that. I’ve been doing that for 20 years. So has my sister, with four children to raise it’s easy to see how one can get behind on various payments! The end of the month is near and I should really pay some of the arrears. And I will, but as I was preparing to write this post I realized that my son - like any growing kid - should get a new pair of shoes for the cold season. The money for that, I’m afraid will have to come out of the sum slated for bills. Sorry, in my view, the housing association and the utilities companies can go another month with less money, while the child cannot go without decent shoes even for one rainy day. It’s that simple! Yet, would this system be implemented in my country that would signal me out as a potential abusive parent! What would a social worker find if it knocked on my door right now? A child with an annoying cough for which we have not seen a doctor as I know it will go away in a few days as he's just had a cold. Also, no cooked food, no lunch served although it's 4pm. Lunch has been postponed until everybody gets home as I'm making pizza. I have no doubt such findings would go on file as neglect!

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That basically goes on the premise that any mistake made in your younger years makes you a potential abuser. No second chances given out. How many people turn themselves around when they know they have a baby on the way? Now they will be targeted for the entire time they are children. That's assuming they manage to keep them that long.

We are no more than slaves and our masters choose whether we get to keep our children or not.

Very true. I haven't considered that but it's true - most people change profoundly when they become parents and get to be responsible for another life.

Given the financial incentive for the local authority, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that the social workers have quotas for the number of families they have to assist, much like the police do with fines.

They way I understand this is the more cases social workers bring in, the more money they get from the government. I guess the workers will be very motivated to find faults with as many parents as they can.

This post was upvoted and resteemed by @thethreehugs. Thank you for your support of @familyprotection.

This is insane!! But bound to happen,purely on the basis that, that film was created.. I heard about plans to change standard cctv cameras to biometris cameras to sense the pherimons people give off, this is aparently to detect when someone is about to commit a crime, we give off different vibes.. Happy to have run away enough time ago 😂 resteemed of course!

Thanks for the resteem!

Happy to have run away enough time ago 😂

You think so? You said you do spend time in the city.... the system knows about you and is not happy .... 'the weird dude with the dogs, who shuns modern society, tries to live off-grid and stay away from banks'. You're already a suspect, my friend!

😂 lucilky my 'status' in society I guess is that guy selling the junkie magerzine who must be high all the time because he's on drugs - poor guy!

On a serious note, im not registered anywhere since years, or used a bank card or contracts so nobody really cares anymore about what the hobo is doing 🤣

The film leaves a moral about this, and that is that those predictive systems do not work. Trying to follow the same principles in the real world, and especially with children, is something delicate and should not happen.

Very worrying and this kind of thing can only be implemented if there are enough willing idiots to uphold and enforce such a polarised process. I dread to think they will ever bring out a points system for this but with folks already being rewarded for keeping fit, maybe they will do the same with "good-parenting". As with any reward there has to be its opposite and i guess the consequences would be relative. Great post @ladyrebecca

The consequences would be heavier than whatever rewards, I'm afraid.

I think this is why government corruption seems to be so blatant as they want to break our trust, completely, towards each other. Apparently, they want us to believe that we are as corruptible as they are and so computers will be better placed to fix this crazy world. Seen it coming for a while now and I'm not hopeful.

That’s 1800 pounds for every new troubled family the social workers can go (harassing) helping. Nice incentive!

Yes, wouldn't it be something if they really used that money to help families in trouble, they could change so many lives for the better. But no. Harassment is exactly what happens instead.

I see a potential for this technology being used in an even worse way in the future. With so many flags going off all over the place, they could target a particular group, pick and choose who they want. It's scary!

Scary, but so many people would buy into it. Ever since terrorism came into our lives, people would agree to just about anything that promises safety - profiling, predicting, targeting antisocial groups, whatever, just keep us safe!

I wonder why I feel suffocated when I go there? lol
(i' ve only lived there for 4 years out of 30 of my adult life - and hated every minute of it...)
What a place to be..

Tis a multi cultural shit hole, and we aint going back, fuck em!

Glad I left the shit hole, experiment that is the so called multi cultural UK, It became a dumping ground for thick people, so I left, they can keep it.

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