Big data e polizia predittiva : riflessioni in tema di protezione del diritto alla privacy e dei dati personali

This essay examines the exploitation of big data by law enforcement agencies as a tool for accomplishing to their public security and crime prevention and repression functions. More specifically, it focuses on predictive policing - i.e. a technique that combines, through algorithms, data obtained from different sources in order to elaborate crime hotspots and composite. The essay aims at assessing the consistency of predictive policing with the right to privacy and data protection, as ruled at international and EU level. From this perspective, after analyzing the meaning of “big data” and whether it is really anonymous, it focuses on the techniques employed within predictive policing, such as profiling, automated processing, data retention and storage.