PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS IN CRIME PREVENTION AND THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS: TACKLING RISKS IN PRIVACY AND FAIR TRIAL FRAMEWORKS

Abstract

In this paper I discuss whether the European Convention on Human Rights provides safeguards to individuals affected by predictive analytics in crime prevention. I start with depicting a conceptual issue that worries legal scholars – the trend of law-enforcement authorities to increase their attention to crime prevention rather than traditional criminal investigations. Then I dive into the right to privacy case-law of the European Court of Human Rights looking for the Court’s references to the threats of data processing. Lastly, I select concrete cases of the European Court of Human Rights on the right to a fair trial to show that the human rights safeguards are not yet developed to frame predictive analytics in crime prevention.