A 44-year-old Romanian was wrongly arrested. Artificial intelligence was to blame
A 44-year-old Romanian citizen was mistakenly identified by an AI system used by Swiss services as the perpetrator of two thefts.
The events took place in the cities of Lugano and Ascona in the Swiss canton of Ticino. Even though the man was in Rome at the time of committing these crimes, he was arrested on the basis of an international arrest warrant.
Artificial intelligence error: Wrongful arrest of a Romanian in Rome
The entire event began with the analysis of city monitoring recordings by artificial intelligence, whose task was to identify the perpetrator of the theft. AI identified a 44-year-old Romanian, on the basis of which the Swiss services issued an international arrest warrant. Last Tuesday, Italian services, acting on the basis of this decision, detained a man in Rome and took him to custody.
Despite protestations of his innocence and evidence confirming that he was in another country at the time the crimes were committed, the man was taken to the Regina Coeli prison in Rome, where he faced extradition to Switzerland.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs intervened
The 44-year-old’s lawyer suspected from the beginning that the whole situation was the result of a mistake. As it turned out, there were indeed serious shortcomings – both on the part of artificial intelligence and the Swiss justice system. The Italian authorities were not properly informed that a Swiss court had already withdrawn the man’s arrest warrant 20 days earlier.
Ultimately, only after the intervention of the Italian Ministry of Interior, the unjustly arrested 44-year-old, who spent one day in prison, was released. So far, the identity of the real perpetrator of the theft has not been established.
Artificial intelligence in the justice system
Prof. John Villasenor from the University of California, points out that algorithms used in surveillance and facial recognition systems tend to make mistakes, especially in identifying people from minority groups.
“These systems still require many improvements, especially when it comes to precise face recognition and limiting false identifications,” emphasizes Prof. Villasenor.
In the case of the 44-year-old Romanian, despite advanced technologies, human error still played a decisive role. The Swiss justice system did not fully verify the results of the AI analysis, which, combined with international communication delays, led to the wrongful arrest.
