The data science that explains why mass surveillance is bad

medium.com

1 pointDanI-S2 comments

The blog basically says: if you can't say be 100% sure whether someone is a terrorist then don't bother since it could violate expectations of justice. I disagree since proper machine learning systems would probably distinguish between someone doing something with a red flag only occasionally and a fanatic who does something based on a strong belief. If someone wanted to check me because their system found something suspicious, I would be happy to help because I would understand it is part of national security work. Customs control today makes random sample checks of the passengers and that's ok. Just watch Border Security, Australia :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEiMHdISTvE

> "Proper machine learning systems would probably distinguish between someone doing something with a red flag only occasionally and a fanatic who does something based on a strong belief"

The point of the article was that even "proper" machine learning systems will generate either false positives or false negatives, either of which are damaging enough that they compromise the effectiveness of the approach.

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