Alvi Choudhury, a software engineer of Bangladeshi origin, was arrested at his home in Southampton last month following a misidentification by facial recognition technology. The software incorrectly identified him as a suspect involved in a burglary that occurred in Milton Keynes, which is approximately 100 miles away. Choudhury was detained for around ten hours before being released.

Details of the Incident

Choudhury recounted the events leading up to his arrest, expressing confusion when police officers knocked on his door while he was engaged in work. Upon reviewing the CCTV footage of the burglary incident, he was outraged to find that the individual depicted bore no resemblance to him. “I was very angry, because the kid looked about 10 years younger than me,” stated Choudhury. He noted significant differences in appearance, such as skin tone, age, and facial hair. “I just assumed that the investigative officer saw that I was a brown person with curly hair and decided to arrest me,” he added.

Police Response to the Arrest

After being taken to the Hampshire police station, Choudhury found that some officers laughed when he inquired about the likeness between him and the suspect. He asserted that authorities recognized he was not the individual they were looking for after comparing the suspect’s footage to his own image. This troubling experience was compounded by the fact that a mugshot of Choudhury was already in their system from a previous encounter with law enforcement in 2021, which he described as a wrongful arrest during an altercation at a university in Portsmouth.

Concerns About Future Implications

Choudhury expressed fear that his mugshot may lead to further wrongful identifications, worrying that if a similar incident occurred elsewhere, he could be mistakenly implicated again. He has since sought damages from the police, highlighting the public nature of his arrest as he was led away in handcuffs in front of neighbors.

Police Statement on the Matter

The Thames Valley police have acknowledged that the arrest was made in error but stressed that it was not based on racial bias. A police spokesperson stated, “While we apologise for the distress caused to the complainant in this case, their arrest was based on the investigating officers’ own visual assessment that the individual matched the suspect in CCTV footage following a retrospective facial recognition match, and was not influenced by racial profiling.”

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