Project Overview

PI Dr. Nidhe Hegde – Computing Science
EPS Partner Dan Jones – Edmonton Police Service

Description This project builds on pre-existing legal apps developed at UAlberta to support access to justice. It seeks to understand and test how such tools might - by earning trust - increase trust in a policing system that centres community members as beneficiaries. The access to justice apps help members of the public assert fairness in policing. They help people submit complaints related to police conduct, and independently verify their rights during live interactions with police. Aggregate data from these apps could inform practice and policy development, if appropriate controls for fairness and privacy are possible. These need to be explored with vulnerable population protection as a top priority. This research project will examine one or more access to justice apps to consider the extent to which the data, interface and content aspects of the apps protect user privacy and promote fairness when deployed. Next, the project will consider if and how aggregate data from such apps could be ethically collected and analysed in a privacy-preserving manner. We hope this baseline work lays a foundation for developing further partnerships that bring together law and computing science in the service of communities that are the intended beneficiaries of access to justice apps. With some baseline understanding of the apps and their potential, we hope to have a good foundation to respectfully engage communities directly.