Knowledge-based policing: Augmenting reality with respect for privacy

Abstract

Contemporary information-led policing (ILP) and its derivative, knowledge-based policing (KBP) fail to deliver value at the edge of action. In this chapter we will argue that by designing augmented realities, information may become as intertwined with action as it can ever get. To this end, however, the positivist epistemological foundation of the synthesized world (and ILP and KBP for that matter) has to be brought into line with the interpretive-constructivist epistemological perspective of every day policing. Using a real-world example of the Dutch National Police Services Agency (KLPD) we illustrate how augmented reality may be used to identify and intercept criminals red-handedly. Subsequently we discuss how we think that the required data processing can be brought into line with the legislative requirements of subsidiarity, proportionality, and the linkage between ends and means, followed by a discussion about the consequences for, among other things, privacy, discrimination, and legislation.