A surveillance state doesn't have to be a police state; is it time to crowdsource law enforcement?

• Position: Greg Beato

MILLIONS OF PEOPLE now take it for granted that Netflix knows more about their specific tastes in gory revenge thrillers than they do themselves. When a woman starts buying unscented lotion and cotton balls, Target's analytics team will ensure she receives ads targeted at pregnant women.

Perhaps inspired by such feats of Holmesian deduction, police departments across the country are increasingly incorporating predictive algorithms into their law enforcement efforts. According to PredPol, a Santa Cruz, California, software developer that uses data about past crimes to predict, very specifically, the places and times in a given city where future crimes are most likely to occur, more than 60 police departments in the U.S. are now using its product.

In general, cops use new technologies to expand the scope of their power and the force with which they apply it. And with 3D face recognition cameras, drones, sensors, automated license plate readers, and similar innovations becoming more common, there's ample reason to believe we're on the verge of an oppressive new Light Age, where state-sanctioned info-warriors equipped with .44 caliber omniscience police our every move, and possibly even our thoughts.

But while this may be the fate we have in store, a more optimistic counternarrative about the impending panopticon exists as well. Imagine a future where every crime that is committed is time-stamped, geo-tagged, livestreamed, and retweeted in 3D high def to a nation of gig-economy stool pigeons and bounty hunters competing for instant bitcoin rewards. As law enforcement gets democratized, the thin blue line will inevitably grow even thinner. Individual privacy diminishes, but so too do arbitrary stop-and-frisks, heavy-handed interrogations, and unjustified use of lethal force.

Granted, a cop-free future isn't what PredPol is selling. "Our software is a tool that does not replace, but requires, the insights of veteran officers and crime analysts," its website advises. And while PredPol's software has potential appeal to a wide range of city agencies, private businesses, and even safety-conscious individuals, the company currently sells exclusively to police departments.

"What we're predicting here is human event patterning in space and time," says Jeff Brantingham, a University of California, Los Angeles, anthropology professor who is one of the researchers whose work ultimately evolved into the PredPol software. According to Brantingham, PredPol's...