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Writer's pictureToBeSecured

Crimer - A way to pry into lives of Baton Rouge residents

Updated: Nov 6, 2019

Good evening and welcome back to another episode of ToBeSecured. I've been away for a while, maybe two weeks, but I decided to make an appearance on today. On yesterday, I released episode 6 of Cyber Tuesdays via my Instagram page; if you haven't already, go and tune in to learn about differential privacy. I would like to thank all of you who're supporting me and constantly providing me with feedback. As I mentioned before, it has been trial and error with the experiments of ToBeSecured and so far both my blog and vlog has been successful. I'll be uploading my content to YouTube as well for those of you who aren't users of social media. The journey has been fun and I am learning about myself and information to help everyone protect their privacy.


With that being said, let's get into today's topic - Crimer. As we know already, nowadays everything is centered around big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. New technologies are utilizing these concepts to help give machines human behavior, human intelligence, and in return solve real world problems. Well, this new development by current and former LSU students are utilizing software engineering to predict crimes in the Baton Rouge area before they even occur.


I'm all for solving crimes and reducing the rate as we know Baton rouge is known as the murder capital, but does it have to require invasion of privacy? While the system is being fed millions of crime incidents, police radio traffic, and crime reports through machine learning, information is supposed to be created based upon a pattern here. In addition, this data is combined with data such as population, weather, and property value over time. The main source of data or information that is of concern here is social media data. Everything that will be posted to your public Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat story, will be utilized within this system for scanning of "illegal activities".


Alexander ‘Lex’ Adams founded the company while he was at LSU. Aiding in his software journey is another engineer named Daniel Atkinson, who is a junior at the university. Alexander goes further to admit 5 million tweets are being processed in one day. But, that isn't the catch. The real examination is of this statement that follows. We, the public, are being told by the news that "No personal information about the Twitter or Snapchat user is used, shared, or stored, but the processor reads the information to determine if a crime or drugs are being referenced." Adams also adds they often see people selling firearms and opioids via Twitter.


Here's another excerpt from the website: "That’s where the East Baton Rouge District Attorney’s Office gets involved. Jon Daily says they’re working on a project to fight the drug problem. It’s called the Baton Rouge Opioid Project to Combat the Opioid Crisis. Daily says the DA’s office acquired the grant through the Department of Justice a little over a year ago.

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The more data, the better. The more information we can gather, the more we can determine how to positively impact the community,” Daily said. “Ultimately to save lives, save families, and combat the opioid crisis in the parish.”


Excuse me if I must consider the hypocrisy here and warn them of any lawsuits that could possible come from this. As I mentioned earlier, I totally agree with strengthening the community and making it a safer place for residents, but not by any means necessary. Was there a consent form sent to me or anyone who resides in Baton Rouge where we're allowing them to collect our information from OUR user account via Twitter, Snapchat, or Instagram? I don't recall receiving that notification and you cannot possibly collect information without a name attached to an account, email, username, IP address, something! That is a total lie and hypocrisy. Listen people, with this kind of information being released to us, it is a must we understand what is at stake here. Everything we post is being monitored by the creators of the application of course, but once again WE CONSENTED to the privacy laws - terms and conditions.


I refuse to allow someone to watch my life and everything I post if I didn't agree to it. Make it make sense. 5 million accounts are being scanned daily along with users' stories, but no personal information is being used, stored, or shared? How? Explain to me because it isn't processing in my head.


If you would like to discuss this, please DM me via Instagram or comment on this post whenever I upload it. Thank you for being an active subscriber, visitor, or viewer. Remember ToBeSecured and Protect Your Privacy at all costs!




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