Artificial intelligence has been hailed as the future of police work and a means to solve cold cases. Experts believe it can analyze data to identify potential suspects and lines of inquiry. Despite its obvious flaws and capacity for major mistakes, as well as the multitude of different AI systems competing for attention in a busy market, the world still seems to view it as the ultimate solution for the future of nearly everything.
In some areas, Robocops are already at work helping to catch criminals. Here are some ways the technology is being introduced...
Serial Spiller
Joseph DeAngelo committed murders and rapes in California during the 1970s and 1980s. But for years, the maniac known as the Golden State Killer eluded justice. He was finally sentenced to life for 13 murders in 2020, after a combination of AI-assisted DNA matching and forensic genealogy helped build a family tree of the culprit.
Photo Finish
On February 10, 2006, a brutal triple murder took place in Anchal, India. A 24-year-old mother named Ranjini and her 17-day-old twins were found at their home with their throats slit. Police identified two suspects, Divil Kumar and Rajesh P, army personnel from a local base, but the pair fled. Then in 2023, police used AI to digitally age their faces and then used them to track down the killers, who were using new identities, through social media.
Keys to Conviction
AI helped convict paedophile Luke Cassidy from Coventry, after police forensic teams used specialist AI software trained on the words used in Cassidy's phone messages to find evidence that he had groomed and sexually abused girls. He was handed a 19-year sentence in 2022.
Smart Work
Avon and Somerset Police have been trialling the use of an AI system called Sõze that can analyze video, social media, emails, and hard drive data all at once. It was able to review evidence relating to 27 complex cases in just 30 hours, a task that would have taken a human 81 years.
Held to Account
An AI tool used by Santander has been helping to track down gangs involved in human trafficking in the UK. The super software enables monitoring of suspicious activity on customers' accounts and has generated hundreds of potential leads for the National Crime Agency.
Tech-ing It Back
An AI tool has been used to recover nearly £500 million in fraud committed during the Covid-19 pandemic. The tech has also helped identify unlawful council tax claims and illegal subletting of social housing.
Nazi Clue
A chilling photo from World War Two shows a German soldier about to shoot a prisoner in a massacre of Jews in modern-day Ukraine in 1941. Now historian Jürgen Matthäus believes he has identified the killer with the help of AI photo analysis. He claims it was Jakobus Onnen, a member of an SS murder unit, who died in fighting in 1943.
