No stranger to controversy, Microsoft has found itself at the center of a minor storm of criticism (and some ridicule) over the company’s latest patent: a GPS-powered system to optimize walking routes that avoid dangerous neighborhoods.

The abstract states, "As a pedestrian travels, various difficulties can be encountered, such as traveling through an unsafe neighborhood or being in an open area that is subject to harsh temperatures. A route can be developed for a person taking into account factors that specifically affect a pedestrian. Moreover, the route can alter as a situation of a user changes; for instance, if a user wants to add a stop along a route.”

Critics immediately seized upon the “unsafe neighborhood” theme to characterize this as an ‘Avoid the Ghetto app,' mentioning the possibility of discriminatory lawsuits. Setting aside the likelihood that such critics may be overstating the case in order to pander to sensationalism (not that journalists would EVER do that, of course!), there is some merit to the concern. After all, stigmatizing a neighborhood as unsafe and unsavory is only going to reinforce the existing challenges faced by residents and business owners; add the volatile element of racial and ethnic profiling, and the accusations against Microsoft could turn very ugly indeed.

However, even the more one-sided critics can hardly deny that this is essentially a promising and useful feature. It simply makes sense to draw up a better walking route using crime statistics -- along with other pertinent data, including real-time news reports, known construction areas, alternate transportation methods when appropriate ... and of course, location-based advertisements. It’s not ALL about avoiding bad neighborhoods; that’s simply what the coverage has focused upon (including this blog, admittedly).

The crucial question in the identification of unsafe neighborhoods is: ‘who says?’ Nowhere does Microsoft’s patent specify where the crime data could come from, or how it would be aggregated and weighed. It’s a fair guess that it might be some combination of location-based crime statistics and community-oriented crowdsourced data, such as the Crime Mapper website and apps. If Microsoft is not making the determination themselves, there’s hardly any reason to characterize the patented feature as inherently discriminatory.

As some have noted, this is merely the Internet-age extension of the extremely helpful input of a casual travel guide, a local friend, a good Samaritan or concierge ... virtually anyone who happens to be familiar enough with the area to advise you which places may be more trouble than they’re worth. As any traveler knows, hearing something from a few different sources is worth far more than a single anecdotal comment. As any browser of third-party online reviews knows, it’s only good sense to take any such advice with a grain of salt.

The comparison is intentional; the real importance of Microsoft’s new patent is the power of crowdsourcing and third-party information to build a better ‘real-time database’ to help inform your choices and actions. Issues of safety and crime will always be politically charged news fodder, but they’re also areas in which distributed means of communication are creating something of a renaissance.

Take for instance the impact of mobile tech and social networking on crime reporting, prevention and even apprehension. In the last year, we’ve seen countless examples -- everything from the Tumblr case of the stolen MacBook to the recent investigation into a serial arsonist in Hollywood.

Obviously, having a multitude of eyes constantly reporting on suspicious behavior carries a significant amount of potential for paranoia and abuse, with technology carrying society well beyond the 20th Century’s predictions of Orwellian dystopias. The mere fact that the media response went straight for ‘the ghetto’ subtext is itself evidence of our sensitivity to the possibility of anything even remotely resembling institutionalized repression and coercion.

However, the chilling effects of crowdsourced vigilance are potentially balanced by a network of online activism dedicated to privacy and free speech -- more agile, widespread and resourceful than ever, as evidenced by the Arab Spring and Occupy movements. To rephrase a well-worn theory, when everyone has cameras pointed at each other, everybody is more likely to behave themselves; this goes for police and government just as well as for laptop thieves and speeders..

You may well shiver at the thought of a system at the mercy of informants -- legitimately concerned, or malicious pranksters -- but the net effect is to relieve crime-fighters of much of their authoritarian burden, giving the community the tools and the responsibility to police itself. Perhaps being identified as a poor pedestrian route will even help a few neighborhoods transform themselves for the better.