{"schema_version":"0.10.0","id":"LR-2026-0431","record_version":1,"title":"Facial recognition error prompts police to arrest Asian man for burglary","verification":{"human_verified":false,"method":"automated_gate","auto_verified":true,"score":46.3,"score_breakdown":{"source_authority":12.1,"independent_corroboration":7.0,"implicated_party_confirmed":0.0,"citation_integrity":14.0,"specificity":3.0,"completeness":2.88,"unhedged_language":5.0},"checks":{"schema_valid":true,"every_field_cited":true,"quotes_verbatim":true,"source_fetched":true,"distinct_incident":true,"dates_plausible":true,"sources_agree":true,"source_describes_incident":true,"severe_backed_by_source":true,"record_integrity":true,"eligible":true,"about_this_case":true},"gate_version":"gate-2026-10-18.7","cross_check_model":null,"cross_check_agreement":null,"duplicate_of":null,"verified_by":null,"verified_at":"2026-11-01","extraction_run_id":null,"evidence_level":{"level":"preliminary","reason":"1 report: The Guardian · subject to change","original_document":null,"reports_total":1,"reports_independent":1,"reports_derivative":0,"developing":false,"disputed":false,"rules_version":"evidence-2026-10-29.1","computed_at":"2026-11-01","history":[{"date":"2026-11-01","from_level":null,"to_level":"preliminary","reason":"1 report: The Guardian · subject to change"}]},"sources_hash":"b1e4713a95d81a3308e91a9efe20804ccf309925ebd571fd8d17769f063b45d0"},"system":{"model_name":null,"model_version":null,"developer":"Cognitec","harness":null,"tools_granted":[],"permissions_scope":null,"autonomy_level":"unknown","guardrails_present":[],"deployment_context":"unknown","tier":null,"lifecycle_stage":null,"integration_type":null,"intended_use":null,"safeguard_state":null,"production_intended":null},"event":{"date_occurred":null,"date_disclosed":"2026-02-25","incident_class":"bias_disparate_impact","failure_class":null,"agent_involved":null,"secondary_failure_classes":[],"trigger":"unknown","duration":null,"detection_method":"unknown","summary":"UK police used facial recognition software, supplied by Cognitec through the Home Office, to match CCTV footage of a burglary suspect against police mugshots. The software matched Alvi Choudhury, a software engineer in Southampton, to a suspect in Milton Keynes about 100 miles away. Thames Valley police arrested him in January and held him in custody for nearly 10 hours before releasing him. Home Office research had earlier found far higher false-positive rates for Black and Asian faces at certain settings. Thames Valley police said the arrest followed a human visual assessment and denied it was unlawful. Choudhury is claiming damages. The Home Office said guidance and training were under review, and a new, independently tested national system is in development.","tags":[],"date_detected":null,"near_miss":null,"root_cause":null,"root_cause_detail":null,"failure_class_detail":null,"responsible_party":null,"adversarial_actor":null,"input_provenance":null,"time_to_contain":null,"operations_paused":null,"remediation":null,"precursor_events":null,"primary_risk":"RK16"},"impact":{"direct_loss_usd":null,"remediation_hours":null,"records_exposed":null,"third_parties_affected_count":null,"severity":"moderate","severity_because":"Test: data or systems of others touched, with a bounded scope stated. Fact: live scanning captured about 100,000 faces across five named locations. No count of two or more affected third parties is stated, so not major.","harm_class":[],"affected_description":null,"protected_class_involved":null,"data_categories_exposed":[],"loss_range_usd":null,"reversibility":null,"downstream_exposure_count":null},"evidence":{"sources":[{"url":"https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/25/facial-recognition-error-prompts-police-to-arrest-asian-man-for-burglary-100-miles-away","publisher":"The Guardian","date":"2026-02-25","type":"press","title":"Facial recognition error prompts police to arrest Asian man for burglary 100 miles away - The Guardian","archived_url":null,"attachment":"first_report","independence":"independent"}],"per_field_confidence":{"system.developer":"C","context.country":"C","event.incident_class":"C","impact.severity":"D","impact.severity_because":"D","event.primary_risk":"D","event.summary":"C","system.autonomy_level":"D","system.deployment_context":"D","event.trigger":"D","event.detection_method":"D","event.date_disclosed":"D","context.denominator_available":"D"},"field_citations":{"system.developer":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"UK police forces use an algorithm procured by the Home Office from Cognitec, a German company."}],"context.country":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"UK police forces use an algorithm procured by the Home Office from Cognitec, a German company."}],"event.incident_class":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"But the technology was revealed in December to produce a far higher rate of false positives for black (5.5 %) and Asian (4.0 %) faces than for white faces (0.04 %) at certain settings, according to Home Office commissioned research."}],"impact.severity":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"It has captured about 100,000 faces, leading to six arrests."}],"impact.severity_because":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Since December, Thames Valley police has also been deploying live facial recognition technology to scan the public in locations in Oxford, Slough, Reading, Wycombe and Milton Keynes."}],"event.summary":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Thames Valley police had used automated facial recognition software which matched him with footage of a suspect of a £3,000 burglary 100 miles away in Milton Keynes, according to documents shared with the Guardian by Liberty Investigates."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Alvi Choudhury, 26, a software engineer, was working at the home he shares with his parents in Southampton in January when police knocked on his door, handcuffed him and held him in custody for nearly 10 hours before releasing him at 2am."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"But the technology was revealed in December to produce a far higher rate of false positives for black (5.5 %) and Asian (4.0 %) faces than for white faces (0.04 %) at certain settings, according to Home Office commissioned research."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Thames Valley police said the decision to arrest Choudhury was made after a human visual assessment as well."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"It said a new national facial matching system is under development, with an improved, independently tested algorithm."}]},"notes_on_gaps":"The sources describe a facial recognition system used by police, not an autonomous AI agent, so no agent, failure-class or autonomy fields are given. No model name or version is stated. The article gives 'January' without a year, so no occurrence date is set. No disclosure or detection date is stated; the article date is not used as a disclosure date. The root cause of the wrongful match is not stated and is left out. The responsible party is not stated by the sources. Severity 'moderate' is my judgement from the stated 100,000 captured faces and five named locations; no count of two or more affected third parties is stated. The Home Office item is a description of work under development, not a change confirmed as made, so it is recorded as a fix on that basis with I8 as the control added; this is a judgement. Custody duration 'nearly 10 hours' is not an exact figure, so no duration is recorded. Choudhury's claims that bias or the officer's motive caused the arrest are his allegations, and the police deny racial profiling, so they are not recorded as findings. Time to contain and remediation hours are not stated. [case created by the backfill: read by claude-haiku-5-5, backfill-2026-11-01.2, 2026-11-01; not yet reviewed] [2026-11-01: evidence level set: Preliminary (1 report: The Guardian · subject to change)]"},"context":{"industry":null,"org_size_band":null,"country":"GB","denominator_available":false,"denominator":null,"related_incident_ids":[],"systemic_exposure":null,"shared_model_id":null,"upstream_incident_id":null,"incident_evidence":null,"regulatory":null,"coverage":null},"analysis":{"sections":{"timeline":[{"text":"Choudhury was wrongly arrested in 2021 and his mugshot was retained on the police system.","quote":"Choudhury’s mugshot was held on the police system only because he had been wrongly arrested in 2021 when he had been attacked on a night out while at university in Portsmouth.","source_index":0,"when":"2021"},{"text":"The technology was revealed to produce a far higher false-positive rate for black and Asian faces at certain settings.","quote":"But the technology was revealed in December to produce a far higher rate of false positives for black (5.5 %) and Asian (4.0 %) faces than for white faces (0.04 %) at certain settings, according to Home Office commissioned research.","source_index":0,"when":"December"},{"text":"Police arrested Choudhury at his home in Southampton and held him in custody for nearly 10 hours.","quote":"Alvi Choudhury, 26, a software engineer, was working at the home he shares with his parents in Southampton in January when police knocked on his door, handcuffed him and held him in custody for nearly 10 hours before releasing him at 2am.","source_index":0,"when":"January"},{"text":"Thames Valley police admitted to Choudhury that the arrest may have been the result of bias in the facial recognition technology.","quote":"Thames Valley police admitted to Choudhury the arrest “may have been the result of bias within facial recognition technology”.","source_index":0,"when":null}]},"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"backfill-2026-11-01.2","extracted_at":"2026-11-01","source_urls":["https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/25/facial-recognition-error-prompts-police-to-arrest-asian-man-for-burglary-100-miles-away"]}}