Legal Considerations on Predictive Policing Based on Italian ‘Algorithmic Administration’ Principles

In Beck’s current risk society, the State is faced with a dilemma – fail to prevent the risk from materializing, but to keep the sphere of citizens’ rights intact; or not to fail, but to restrict fundamental rights? Striving for a balance turns out to be the main issue that juridical assessment must consider when it comes to the use of predictive technology tools in the public sector. Policing is an administrative function that is mainly composed of acts of a preventive nature. By using ICT, it is possible to employ AI systems with a very high rate of certainty to ‘predict’ future crime scenes. But is it possible to combine the use of such predictive systems with the protection of fundamental rights? The paper will attempt to answer this question by reconstructing the Italian legal framework, focusing on its most recent laws and, above all, on the principles of algorithmic administration as set out by the Italian administrative judiciary. On this basis, the paper will investigate whether it is possible to use these tools so as to enjoy their positive effects, but reduce the risk of violating fundamental rights.