AI Tool Revolutionizes Cold Case Investigations, Promising Breakthrough in Unsolved Crimes

AI tool that can do '81 years of detective work in 30 hours' trialled by police

Some of the country's most notorious cold cases could be solved with the help of an artificial intelligence tool that can do 81 years of detective work in just 30 hours. Avon and Somerset Police are trialling the technology which can identify potential leads that may not have been found during a manual trawl of the evidence. The Soze tool - developed in Australia - can analyse video footage, financial transactions, social media, emails and other documents simultaneously. An evaluation showed it was able to review the evidential material in 27 complex cases in just 30 hours - which it is estimated would have taken up to 81 years for a human to do. Gavin Stephens, the chair of the National Police Chiefs' Council, said the technology could be used to help close some of the country's oldest and most notorious unsolved cases. "I could imagine this sort of thing being really useful for cold case reviews," he told reporters. "You might have a cold case review that just looks impossible because of the amount of material there and feed it into a system like this which can just ingest it, then give you an assessment of it. I can see that being really, really helpful." It comes after Sky News reported fewer police officers from the UK's largest force are working on unsolved murder cases, while last week the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley described his force as "dangerously stretched". Five Met officers are moving from a specialist cold case department investigating the 30-year-old murder of Atek Hussain to bolster basic command units. Mr Hussain, 32, was stabbed in the heart as he returned from work in September 1994. He managed to stagger to his home and tell his family that his attackers were Asian before collapsing. The Met said the case is not currently active, but no unsolved murder investigation is ever closed and Mr Hussain's case was last reviewed by its Serious Crime Review Group in August. Mr Stephens said the Soze tool is one of "dozens of ground-breaking programs" which could soon be rolled out across the UK. They include an AI tool to build a national database of knives, which could be used to put pressure on retailers, and a system that allows call handlers to focus their attention on speaking to domestic abuse victims. Read more from Sky News: Major search for teen seen entering water Baby found after car hijacked "If all of those 64 examples were adopted all across England and Wales and had similar gains to those of the forces using them, we'd get something like 15 million hours of productivity back to spend on things like investigations or responding to emergencies, which equates to more than £350m in costs," the chief constable said. But he said AI and other technology such as facial recognition and robotic automation procedures are "not a replacement" for police, with an officer "involved in the final decisions". Police chiefs also recognise the pace of its implementation and use must be in line with what the public is comfortable with. "This isn't handing over our responsibilities to technology but what the technology is helping us to do better," said Mr Stephens.

How cold cases could be solved in 30 hours instead of 80 years thanks to AI

Detectives trialling technology which can sift through vast amounts of evidence far quicker than humans Martin Evans Crime Editor 23 September 2024 7:14pm Some of the most notorious unsolved crimes in Britain could finally be cracked with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), a police chief has said. Technology developed in Australia is being used to examine cold cases in the UK, identifying fresh leads and investigative opportunities. Using the latest cutting-edge AI systems, computers can quickly sift through vast amounts of evidence - and spot clues and potential new avenues that may have previously been missed. Detectives in Avon and Somerset, using a system called Soze, managed to complete a review of all the evidential material in 27 complex cases in the space of just 30 hours - something they estimated would have taken 81 years to do manually. The force is now carrying out further tests with the system with a view to it being rolled out across other forces. Gavin Stephens, the chair of the National Police Chiefs' Council, said the potential benefits to policing from such AI technology were enormous. He said: "I can imagine from my experience this sort of thing being hugely useful for cold case reviews. "You may have a cold case that looks impossible because of the amount of material there and if there is a system like this that can just ingest it and give you an assessment of it then I can see that being really helpful." Subtle clues It is one of several AI applications being looked at by UK policing in a bid to integrate technology with more traditional crime-fighting tools. West Midlands Police have introduced an AI system to support staff who answer calls to the 101 non-emergency number. The system is intended to help with callers reporting matters such as lost property and abandoned vehicles, freeing up staff to deal with more serious issues. However, it has also been designed to flag subtle clues in a caller's voice indicating vulnerability, such as in cases of domestic abuse, that may have been missed by a human call handler. Other forces are making use of AI tools to assist with the time-consuming job of redacting sensitive evidence, which if done manually can consume a large amount of an officer's time. Mr Stephens said it was vital that police made the best use of emerging science and technology but stressed it was equally important that innovations were adopted across the country rather than just by individual forces. "We are not short of innovation and ideas but what we have not been great at in the past has been getting them widely adopted for everyone to use," he said. "We want to make the best of technology in order to help us bring criminals to justice and give a better service to victims but we are also acutely aware that there can be a fear or concern about some of the technologies we adopt, so it is really important we have good quality discussions and debate about how things are implemented and adopted."