Automated facial recognition software: innocent man arrested
On 8 January 2026 Mr Alvi Choudhury was arrested on suspicion of a burglary that had occurred 100 miles away from where he was at the time. Arrest was prompted by a mismatch made by automated facial recognition software used by police throughout the U.K.
Iain Gould of DPP Law has instructed Nick Stanage to pursue a claim for damages against Thames Valley Police for false imprisonment, breach of data protection law, breach of Art 8 ECHR and breach of the Equality Act 2010.
A report from the National Physical Laboratory (‘NPL’) found in December 2025 that in some circumstances, the algorithm used is more likely to incorrectly match black and Asian people than their white counterparts. The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, responding to that report, stated ‘System failures have been known for some time, yet these were not shared with those communities affected.’
The NPL found that the false positive identification rate (FPIR) for white subjects (0.04%) is lower than that for Asian subjects (4.0%) and black subjects (5.5%).
The testing found that the number of false positives for black women was particularly high. “The FPIR for black male subjects (0.4%) is lower than that for black female subjects (9.9%)".
