Privacy at risk if everyone watches

evidence in a responsible, helpful way has happened here in the real world.

Jalopnik, an automotive news site, regularly asks its readers to draw upon their combined knowledge and expertise to identify vehicles suspected of being involved in crimes. More often than not, it works, and law enforcement has publicly thanked the site and its readers for help in nabbing criminals.

There’s also Nextdoor, the private social network for neighborhoods that I’ve been using for years, mainly to help track down my missing cat or find a new home for an old couch. But it’s also warned me of muggings in the area and a rash of car break- ins, and it helped track down a person stealing packages off people’s porches. Over the years, though, the company has dealt with a host of issues around racial profiling and annoying hypervigilance bordering on very unneighborly hysteria.

“Crowdsourcing has value, but mob mentalities are tough to square with the rule of law,” Jerome says. “We cannot discount the damage any single false positive could cause when it comes to

“Mob mentalities are tough to square with the rule of law.” Joseph Jerome, policy counsel with the Center for Democracy & Technology

criminal accusations.”

That scenario — of app users targeting and beating to a pulp the wrong guy — happens in the Wisdom of the Crowd pilot.

“If we allow the crowd to do it, the control is lost,” says actor Richard T. Jones, who plays the by- the- books San Francisco Detective Tommy Cavanaugh, the morally conscientious sidekick to Piven’s Jeffrey Tanner. “For sure there’s a parallel between Sophe and the real- life technology available to people today. That’s why this is so interesting.”