Last month, the Guardian reported on an arrest made by police in Southampton. Automated facial recognition software had identified the likely perpetrator of a burglary 100 miles away in Milton Keynes; the cops had a photo of the robber, and now they had found a match. The trouble was, not only was the arrested guy not the real culprit but, apart from them both being of south Asian heritage, the two men didn’t even look alike. Only one had a beard, and they were noticeably different in age. The algorithm couldn’t be trusted.
Fans of the superlative BBC conspiracy thriller The Capture might have read the story and let out a dry chuckle. Although it deals with bigger problems than one unfortunate guy unfairly spending time in a cell, the drama exists in a world bedevilled by opaque online systems and unreliable digital imagery. Every day something in our modern reality chimes with it, whether it’s dodgy data firms getting government contracts or your mum’s Instagram being overrun by AI videos of dogs with five legs. It’s a good time for The Capture to come back.
