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Gang members who are more likely to commit violent crimes can now be identified by police using Minority Report-style software.

London's Metropolitan Police have tested a system that analyses a person's criminal history and posts on social media to assess how likely it is for them to commit a crime.

The 20-week pilot study, which is the first of its kind in the UK, combined data from different crime reporting and crime intelligence systems used by the Met.

London's Metropolitan Police has tested a system that analyses a person's criminal history and posts on social media to assess how likely it is for them to commit a crime

'You've got limited police resources and you need to target them efficiently,' Muz Janoowalla, head of public safety analytics at Accenture told the BBC.

'What this does is tell you who are the highest risk individuals that you should target your limited resources against.'

The technology echoes the system used in the film Minority Report which predicted who would commit crimes and stopped them before the crime takes place.

Developed by global consulting group, Accenture, the latest software helped police analyse intelligence about known gang members across London's 32 boroughs across a four year period.

The software helped police analyse intelligence about known gang members across London's 32 boroughs across a four year period. It was able to analyse social media posts, such as the image above, posted by a London gang who stole a fleet of expensive, high-performance cars last year

Police then compared the software's results to known acts of violence that took place in the fifth year to find out its accuracy.

Mr Janoowalla said the Met were hoping to identify groups of gang members that were at the highest risk of reoffending rather than focusing on specific individuals.

However, he was would not disclose the exact criteria on which the gang members were scored.

Privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch has asked for more information to be made public about how the data will be used.

'The police need to be very careful about how they use this kind of technology,' said research director Daniel Nesbitt.

MARYLAND AND PENNSYLVANIA USE COMPUTER TO PREDICT CRIMES

When police in Minority Report predicted who would commit crimes , it was considered so futuristic, the film was set in 2054

When police in Minority Report predicted who would commit crimes and stopped them before they did it, it was considered so futuristic, the film was set in 2054.

But last year, law enforcers in two American states used crime-prediction software to predict which freed prisoners are most likely to commit murder, and supervised them accordingly.

Instead of relying on parole officers to decide how much supervision inmates will need on the outside by looking at their records, the new system used a computer algorithm to decide for them.

The Minority Report-style software is already being used in Baltimore and Philadelphia to predict future murderers.

It has been developed by Professor Richard Berk, a criminologist at the University of Pennsylvania, who believes it will reduce the murder rate and those of other crimes.

Professor Berk says his algorithm could be used to help set bail amounts and also decide sentences in the future. It could also be modified to predict lesser crimes.

'Big data solutions such as this can run the risk of unfairly targeting certain groups of people and potentially making them feel stigmatised as a result.'

Accenture has carried out other crime-prevention analysis elsewhere. For example, in Santa Cruz, California, police have applied the group's predictive analytics to their theft data.

This, it claims, has helped them identify the streets at greatest risk resulting in a 19 per cent drop in property theft without the need for more officers.

In Singapore, authorities are undertaking a 'Safe City' program that combines electronic vision technologies and predictive analytics into CCTV video feeds to detect street incidents.

Muz Janoowalla, head of public safety analytics at Accenture, said the Met was hoping to identify groups of gang members that were at the highest risk of reoffending rather than focusing on specific individuals