Mains Practice Questions

Introduction:

As the District Magistrate of a metropolitan city, I face the dual challenge of ensuring public safety through innovative technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based predictive policing, while simultaneously safeguarding citizens’ fundamental rights and addressing concerns of bias, consent, and surveillance. Balancing efficiency in crime prevention with constitutional values is the ethical imperative in this case.

Body:

A. Immediate Response to Concerns

• Acknowledge the Concerns and Engage with the Stakeholders: Hold consultations with civil society groups, digital rights activists, and marginalized community representatives to ensure their concerns are formally recorded.
  • Create a grievance redressal mechanism where citizens can report and challenge if required the misuse of predictive policing.
• Ensure Transparency Measures: Issue public statements clarifying the scope and safeguards of predictive policing to build trust.
  • Require every AI generated alert or prediction to be verified and validated by trained police officers before action.
• Safeguarding Privacy and Consent: Issue instructions to ensure strict data minimization, only necessary and proportionate data should be collected and used.
  • Push for anonymization and encryption of sensitive personal data, preventing misuse or unauthorized access.
• Conduct Independent Audit: Commission a technical and ethical audit of the AI tool to assess risks of bias, profiling, and data misuse.
• Temporary Safeguards: Suspend expansion until initial robust safeguards, such as oversight mechanisms and grievance redressal, are instituted. 
  • Embark necessary pilot projects and review before on ground expansion.

B. Ethical Issues Involved

• Privacy vs. Surveillance: Non-consensual mass data collection challenges the right to privacy (Justice K.S. Puttaswamy case).
• Bias and Discrimination: Algorithmic profiling may disproportionately target marginalized communities, violating equity and justice.
• Autonomy and Human Judgment: Over-reliance on AI risks eroding police discretion, accountability, and human empathy.
• Transparency and Accountability: AI’s “black box” nature makes it difficult to assign responsibility for wrongful outcomes.
• Public Trust: Lack of citizen participation in the decision-making process may erode democratic legitimacy.

C. Justifying AI for Public Safety

• Efficiency and Proactive Crime Prevention: AI can analyze vast datasets to detect patterns, reducing crime before it occurs.
• Resource Optimization: Enables better deployment of limited police personnel and faster response times.
• Evidence-Based Policing: Data-driven insights can minimize arbitrariness compared to subjective judgment.
• Ethical Justification: Utilitarian perspective maximizing public safety and reducing harm to the greatest number of people.
• Comparative Learning: Many global cities successfully use AI-driven policing under strict oversight, showing it can work if regulated.

D. Measures to Ensure Accountability, Fairness, and Protection of Rights of Citizens.

• Rule of Law & Oversight: Establish independent regulatory authority to oversee AI use in policing, with parliamentary/state legislature reporting.
• Algorithmic Transparency: Mandate disclosure of AI models, training datasets, and decision-making criteria.
• Bias Mitigation: Ensure periodic third-party audits and inclusion of diverse datasets to minimize systemic discrimination.
• Data Protection: Align usage with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 ensuring informed consent, anonymization, and limited data retention.
• Human-in-the-Loop: Make AI an assistive tool, not a replacement — final decisions must rest with accountable police officers.
• Citizen Grievance Mechanism: Create complaint redressal forums where individuals can challenge AI-based profiling or actions.
• Capacity Building: Train police officers in ethics of technology use, digital rights, and responsible AI practices.

If deployed with informed consent, oversight, and accountability, predictive policing can balance public safety with citizens’ rights, ensuring legitimacy in a democracy.

Conclusion

As Aristotle observed, “Law is reason, free from passion.” Similarly, technology must serve justice without bias. Predictive policing can be a valuable tool for public safety, but only if deployed with transparency, accountability, and strict adherence to constitutional safeguards. As District Magistrate, my role is to ensure that innovation strengthens not undermines democracy and citizens’ trust.