A very useful tool

The fight against domestic violence remains a formidable challenge for our authorities and one should never refrain from considering additional, modern and effective tools.

One such tool can easily be AI. Artificial intelligence is the science of making machines do things that would require intelligence if done by humans. While I am not an expert in AI, such as the likes of Alexiei Dingli, I have come across various systems that have effectively adopted AI in preventing domestic abuse.

Machine-learning methods are far more effective at assessing which victims of domestic violence are most at risk than conventional risk assessments. Machine-learning systems that analyse existing information, including criminal records, calls made to the police and reported incidents of violence, can identify the risk of repeat incidents more accurately than the current standardised questionnaires used by our police.

Such systems can be vital as, occasionally, the police have been too slow in getting to domestic abuse incidents. Sometimes, the delays were because the force did not have enough officers available to attend.

Technology and AI can enable us to help domestic abuse victims in many effective and creative ways. Technology has bridged gaps in data, documentation, reporting and policy, and has provided faster, more efficient tools for victims.

Perhaps Dingli might be tempted to delve deeper into the potential of AI in combating domestic violence in our country and provide us with a more learned insight, as he has been successfully doing within the road network and educational sectors.

Mark Said – Msida

Disappearing public beaches

Protesting against the uptake of public beaches.

The area in front of Paradise Bay was a public beach. Why is it now privately owned?

The government must stop giving away precious space on beaches for operators to fill up with deckchairs, ADPD leader Sandra Gauci said recently.

She was speaking at a protest at Buġibba’s Perched Beach, where St Paul’s Bay residents and NGOs Flimsies għal Ambjent Aħjar and Moviment Graffitti occupied the small free patch of sand typically taken up by the tables and chairs of a nearby beach club.

Struggling to be heard against music blaring from the club, the leader of Malta’s green party said the situation on the beach was emblematic of a problem affecting most beaches across Malta and Gozo. She said that, with the blessing of a permit, beach club operators had been given free rein to occupy every inch of the beach and pollute the area with unending noise and loud music.

“Why should we have to pay to swim and enjoy our beaches?” she asked.

“I am not ready to put up with this noise when I want to enjoy the beach in peace just because someone has a permit. We residents came to live here to enjoy the sea, not to be plagued by rats and mountains of garbage.”

Gauci said that by continuing to approve permits for deckchairs, tables and chairs, the government was harming people’s quality of life.

She encouraged the public to speak up and fight back against the encroachment of businesses onto beaches, warning if they did not, the situation would only get worse.

“We have to fight for every centimetre, and the centimetres you don’t fight for today you will lose next summer,” she said.

Colette Mallia – Paola