I think it would be a very clever Crime Call show on Irish television if camera footage could match apparel to crimes.
In today’s Sunday Times, John Mooney writes “Garda will Headquarters is planning to use artificial intelligence to solve crimes by tracking objects such as clothing, cars and bags, not solely faces, as new legislation is developed alongside the planned rollout of body-worn cameras.”
The force is engaged in extensive discussions with the Department of Justice on the general scheme of the Recording Devices (Amendment) Bill governing the use of body-worn cameras and AI to examine footage and images.
The technology is expected to radically enhance the garda’s ability to investigate and solve crime. In cases where Al is used to search footage for a person of interest, the search will be conducted without providing the technology with information about any associated identity. Instead the search will be based on information obtained from existing footage, which the technology will search for a person wearing specific clothes, driving a car or carrying a specific item.
The force is not seeking the power to use AI to search for people using body-worn cameras, but only retrospectively. However, facial recognition cameras attached to the top of police vans to scan the faces of people as they walk past, immediately assessing them against a wanted list and alerting officers if there is a match, have proved successful in England.
The Metropolitan Police in London described it as the biggest breakthrough for crime detection since DNA.
The garda is not seeking legislation to use Al to scan people’s faces as they go about their daily lives. Al will be used to solve crimes. It’s a tool that can be used to speed up investigations. Searching hundreds of hours of CCTV footage for someone wearing a red jacket makes no sense when AI can do it in a few hours," said one senior officer familiar with the discussions.
The force is designing a digital evidence management system capable of storing hundreds of thousands of hours of footage recorded by gardai on patrol. When operational, the system will also allow members of the public to upload images, dashcam and CCTV footage for the gardai to examine following appeals for information.
The Department of Justice is preparing to allow gardai to use body-worn cameras following trials in five garda stations. The results of the trials are expected to show a substantial decrease in public order offences, caused by people becoming less aggressive once they are informed they are being filmed. The initial findings also indicate that accused persons plead guilty when charged to avoid having footage of their behaviour screened in court.
AI is already being used by the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau to examine computers and phones to investigate murders, child abuse, cybercrime and online harassment.
Gardai say the use of such software has become standard practice in every developed country and there have been no legal challenges to its use in Ireland to date.