The use of AI in policing to date has largely been in areas such as facial recognition and helping to deploy resources in the most effective ways, but a recent study led by Northumbria University highlights how it can also help to crack unsolved crimes, especially by providing insights into the weapons used in committing the crime.
“Machine learning uses a series of algorithms to model complex data relationships,” the authors say. “Through careful fine-tuning, these can be applied to predict important characteristics of the ammunition used in a particular shooting event from those of the respective gunshot residue (GSR) deposited on surrounding surfaces or items, such as spent cases, wounds, and, potentially, also the shooter’s hands.”