Police say AI could help solve Britain’s most complicated cold cases

September 24, 2024, 09:17

Some of the UK’s most infamous unsolved criminal cases could be solved by AI, with research showing it can analyse evidence much faster than humans.

Police chiefs hope that in the future, artificial intelligence could be used to collect vast amounts of data and provide officers with new lines of inquiry.

A test by Avon and Somerset Police using an Australian-developed AI tool called Söze found the software could process an amount of evidence in just two days that would take humans 81 years to examine.

During the trial, Söze examined 27 complex cases and the results showed that he was able to process all the evidence within 30 hours.

A more comprehensive test is now planned to prove that the software can be used on a wider scale.

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National Police Chiefs’ Council chairman Gavin Stephens said the technology would be “really useful” in providing new lines of inquiry into cold cases.

He said: “So you could have an overview of unsolved cases, what the costs might be, the amount of material there, and if there’s a system like that, they can just absorb that and give you a score, then I can see that being really, really, really helpful with some of the most high-profile unsolved crimes.”

Söze’s website claims it “enables researchers and analysts to discover patterns in diverse data sets at a level of analysis that is not possible using current methods.”

The software can also allegedly seamlessly analyze:

• Video material
• Financial transactions
• Call Charge Records
• Social media
• Emails
• Pictures
• Mobile phones
• Computer hard drives and
• Documents.

Last year it was revealed that one police force had processed “65 years of data in just six months” thanks to advances in artificial intelligence.

Speaking to LBC, Paul Taylor said the technology – discussed at a security summit this week – was already being used by 600 officers a year.

“All forces are already using AI, it is integrated into systems around unmanned vehicles and drones, and in language translation for rapid crisis situations,” he said.

“We use artificial intelligence in facial recognition technology to identify hundreds of criminals every month.

“It looks through hundreds of thousands of images to identify illegal child pornography material. Historically, our teams would have had to look through this material manually, but now we can use AI to find these explicit and offensive images.

“This not only speeds up the investigation, but also means our staff do not have to look through a large amount of material, which is important.

“Of course, in each case, the final decision is made by a human, but artificial intelligence helps these humans to perform their tasks quickly.”