[Corpora-List] Open Research Position (M.S. / Ph.D. / post-doc):, Analyzing Routine Activities for Crime Prediction

[Zoltan Boka]

In my view, consent obtained under duress is no consent at all. It is true of course that one can simply forgo twitter and thus withhold consent. It is also true that this approach could be applied to other realms, but the implication- that your only choices are implied consent to every possible application and use of your information or abstinence from technology bothers me.

Twitter is merely optional- but many things in life are not (and even with twitter for some it may be a key to their livelihood and thus mandatory) so to say that you can withhold consent through abstinence is a false choice, and for some its no choice at all. 

Sent from my iPhone

On May 26, 2014, at 9:44, Matthew Gerber <gerber.matthew at gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 5:57 PM, Christina Murmann <christinamurmann at web.de> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Matthew Gerber wrote: 
>> "I've provided victim-based examples" 
>> Even if we do not take a potential criminal point of view but a victim centered one: It is still questionable if the potential (!) victim's data should be used in such a way. After all, they did not ask for their whereabouts and daily routine activities to be monitored and used. And they will not be made aware of it either, I assume.
>> 
> 
> You have assumed incorrectly. All of our data are collected from Twitter's public API. Specifically, we use the streaming API, which provides access to Tweets that have been tagged with GPS coordinates. Users must opt in to the use of GPS tagging. So, yes, these users have _specifically_ asked for their whereabouts to be made public.
> 
> To the point of whether we should be using the data as we are, I can only say that every single Twitter user in the history of Twitter has agreed to Twitter's Terms of Use, which permit us to collect and use their data as described. If people don't want us to use their Twitter data in our crime research, they should not use Twitter. Nobody is forcing them to do so.
>  
>> Also, the approach cannot be purely victim-based for obvious reasons: in two cities there might be blocks with similarly high proportions of 9 to 5 workers and therefore - according to this approach - an alledgedly high risk of robbery. Still, past criminality rates and mean wealth might differ greatly for these cities, probably resulting in a quite different risk of robbery for the respective city. A purely victim based approach doesn't accout for that.
> 
> Certainly, it does not. That's why we do, in fact, look at these other factors when we build our crime analysis models. I was just trying to balance out the discussion's exclusive focus on criminals.
>  
>> Matthew Gerber wrote: 
>> "Now of course, all of this could be used for malicious purposes, just like every other technology in the history of Man."
>> Matthew Gerber seems to want to say 'Because other technologies have had this flaw, I should not need to be troubled by this fact'
>> 
> 
> Not quite. I'm just saying there's nothing new here with regard to human rights. People need to be aware of the content they post publicly and the rights that other people (e.g., myself) have to collect and use such information. This is an old, but worthwhile, discussion.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Matthew Gerber
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