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Thames Valley Police wrongfully arrest Asian man due to facial recognition error

Alvi Choudhury, a 26-year-old software engineer from Southampton, was arrested by Thames Valley Police for a burglary in Milton Keynes he had never visited. The arrest followed a retrospective facial recognition match that confused him with a younger, differently featured suspect of south Asian heritage. Choudhury was held for nearly 10 hours and released without charge. He is claiming damages and alleges the arrest was influenced by bias in the facial recognition technology.

Date it happened
2026-01-01
Organisation involved
Thames Valley Police
Product, system or model
Cognitec facial recognition
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This incident was imported from theguardian.com. Our additions to it — the structured fields, the translation, the checks against other reports — are published under the same licence.

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