46 | New Scientist | 13 July 2019
Caught before the act
Shane Johnson is a pioneer of predictive policing. The approach is already
changing how we tackle crime, he tells Joshua Howgego
A
PREMONITION tells me I will enjoy
meeting a professor of future crimes
at University College London.
And I do: his work is fascinating. As well as
forecasting how new technologies can be
exploited by criminals, Shane Johnson studies
which policing strategies really work. He is
helping to run one of the most sophisticated
predictive policing experiments yet, being
trialled on the streets in West Yorkshire, UK.What does a professor of future crimes do?
When new technologies are introduced,
criminals quickly see ways to exploit them.The reason is that companies don’t often
think about the crime implications when
they launch new products. For instance,
back in the 1980s, vehicle crime was soaring
because there were some models of car where
one key would open one in five vehicles.
Today, it is the internet of things. Around
2016, we started to see malware scouring
the internet for devices where the usernames
and passwords were easily guessable, and
then using those devices to overload websites
and make them unavailable. Our aim is to
look at some of the things that are happening
over the next five to 10 years – from drones toTE
AMJACKSON/GETT
YFeatures Interview
counterfeiting technology – and imagine
what the implications are, with a view to try
to mitigate them.What are your major concerns in the near future?
The number of internet-connected devices
in our homes is growing. Many of these devices
have access to our data, can stream images
to or from our homes and may even control
physical security measures, such as door
and window locks. We know that many of
these devices are insecure, and this needs
addressing. Advances in machine learning –
currently used in satellite navigation systems,