The risk assessment algorithms are being used in the criminal court of the USA (e.g. COMPAS in Wisconsin, back in 2012, after years of development since the 1990s) is a data-driven predictive tool that uses machine-learning techniques to assess an offender’s likelihood of recidivism while making parole, probation, bail, and sentencing decisions. Such a shift in the criminal justice settings is named as predictive justice; and such predictive algorithms are as ‘risk assessments tools’ or ‘evidenced-based methods’ (see Malek, 2021). But over time, it creates concerns ranging from machine bias (ProPublica, 2016; Kirkpatrick, 2016) and discrimination (Christin, Rosenblat & Boyd…

A report estimates that Google gets over 3.5 billion searches daily and internet users generate about 2.5 quintillion bytes of data each day. As a result, the total size of digital data will be 175 zettabytes by 2025, which means that information will be more abundant than ever before. Data is now considered an asset class or new currency, sometimes compared to oil since it is harvested and refined in order to “produce” insights. Data is also not new, but a critical resource on the planet growing at an unprecedented pace that is characterised by a high degree of variety…

The adoption of digital technology will boost the capacity of courts and help to contribute to a faster and more effective justice dispensation system and the furtherance of the rule of law, writes Ab Malek

THE ongoing global crisis caused by COVID-19 is not just a public health crisis. It has, rather, affected every sector since its outbreak. It has also hit the justice sector worldwide. At the outset, the necessity for maintaining the social distancing protocol to contain the spread of COVID-19 led to a closure of courtrooms and other legal activities and, thus, started affecting justice dispensation globally…

The risk assessment tools, mainly ‘COMPUS’ in the USA, predict the recidivism of an offender with machine-learning algorithms by analyzing an enormous amount of ‘data’. These statistical tech-solutions are chosen for informing judges of an offender’s likelihood of recidivism, calculating an overall score that classifies an offender as low, medium or high risk, while making parole, probation, bail, and sentencing decisions. Such a shift in the criminal justice settings are named as predictive justice, and such predictive algorithms are as ‘risk assessments tools’ or ‘evidenced-based methods’.

2. Apart from the USA, an Asian country — Malaysia — adopted a predictive…

The value of data in the age of big data is ever-increasing. As the data landscape expands every second every day; and data becomes ubiquitous and easier to collect, personal data is massively being mined and stored for being revitalized in the application of location tracking, healthcare, predictive policing, predictive justice, fraud detection, advertising, media, and entertainment. But, at the same time, it gives rise to some new issues in relation to the waves of the big data effects, e.g. data and privacy breaches, etc.

Such new issues may be exemplified some questions: If you are not doing hazardous work…