Predictive Technology: A New Tool For The Thought Police

by Nicholas West

Predictive technology is exploding, in stealth, across the virtual landscape. The arrival of Big Data initiatives by government, as well as a massive industry of data brokers is not only putting privacy at risk, but is offering those with access to the information unprecedented ways to manage the lives of everyday citizens.

Until this point, it has been a very tech-heavy subject inclined to produce glazed eyes when addressed. However, the viral story of Facebook using their algorithms to go beyond surveillance and actually manipulate the emotions of users as a type of psychology experiment has thrust these practices into the mainstream.

Certainly this experiment being conducted without the knowledge or consent of those involved is a huge breach of privacy and ethics. However, when it comes to policing and health, things really are turning Orwellian as thought “crimes” are now detectable with predictive technology.

The emergence of predictive policing and predictive healthcare has a single benefit that the Facebook example does not: the PR push that their tools are making people safer. Thus, the notion of Minority Report-style pre-crime has become a reality in both Illinois and California with no where near the pushback that is being expressed toward Facebook.

Concurrently, the medical field is merging with an array of wearable gadgetry that is flooding the consumer marketplace with millions of sensors to track vital signs in real time. Through the promise of both personal health attainment and medical threat alerts, people are embracing this tech in droves.

However, if you thought you were only monitoring yourself to perhaps make better personal choices, think again. A Bloomberg headline states: “Your Doctor Knows You’re Killing Yourself. The Data Brokers Told Her.” The article details what the data already shows about how your consumer purchases might indicate your lifestyle health index.

You may soon get a call from your doctor if you’ve let your gym membership lapse, made a habit of picking up candy bars at the check-out counter or begin shopping at plus-sized stores.

That’s because some hospitals are starting to use detailed consumer data to create profiles on current and potential patients to identify those most likely to get sick, so the hospitals can intervene before they do. Information compiled by data brokers from public records and credit card transactions can reveal where a person shops, the food they buy, and whether they smoke. The largest hospital chain in the Carolinas is plugging data for 2 million people into algorithms designed to identify high-risk patients, while Pennsylvania’s biggest system uses household and demographic data. (emphasis added)

Now imagine giving them real-time data about your vital signs on top of that.

As Jon Rappoport detailed, this type of information is irresistible to control systems that are ripe for corruption. Embedded in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), there lies disturbing verbiage indicating that the personal options arising from wearable gadgets and consumer behavior may become government mandated in the near future. He cites two key quotes from a Managed Care article, “More Data in Health Care Will Enable Predictive Modeling Advances.”

Predictive modeling (PM) has grown to be a linchpin of care management. Health plans, integrated delivery systems, and other health care organizations (HCOs) increasingly channel their patients to interventions based in part on what they deduce from predictive models that have traditionally been run against databases of administrative claims. In this arena, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) [Obamacare] is likely to exert a profound effect…

more…

http://wariscrime.com/new/predictive-technology-new-tool-thought-police/