"They knew I wasn’t the suspect."
A software engineer named Alvi Choudhury was wrongly arrested after a facial recognition software mistakenly linked him to a burglary.
The arrest happened at his home in Southampton while he was working and living with his elderly parents.
Police handcuffed him and kept him in custody for nearly ten hours before releasing him.
The incident was triggered by a burglary in Milton Keynes, which is roughly 100 miles away from Southampton.
Automated software matched his face with footage of a suspect involved in a £3000 theft.
However, the CCTV footage clearly showed a much younger man who had very different facial features than Mr Choudhury.
Choudhury said: “I was very angry, because the kid looked about 10 years younger than me.
“Everything was different. Skin was lighter. Suspect looked 18 years old. His nose was bigger.
“He had no facial hair. His eyes were different. His lips were smaller than mine.
“I just assumed that the investigative officer saw that I was a brown person with curly hair and decided to arrest me.”
Choudhury said that officers at the Hampshire police station laughed when he asked them: “Does this look anything like me?”
He added: “They knew I wasn’t the suspect after looking at footage of the suspect and looking at my picture”
Choudhury is now claiming damages against both Thames Valley police and Hampshire Constabulary for this very traumatic experience.
His neighbours witnessed the arrest, and he was unable to attend his work commitments on the following business day.
The victim’s mugshot was only on the system because of a separate wrongful arrest that occurred back in 2021.
He had been attacked on a night out and was released with no further action after that initial incident.
Now he worries that having a second mugshot in the database will lead to even more wrongful arrests in the future.
“If a brown person in Scotland robs a bank, are they going to come and arrest me?”
He mentioned that this situation makes him look more suspicious when he applies for the necessary government security work clearances.
In January 2026, another force paid damages to a black man who was also wrongfully arrested using this specific technology.
The Home Office claims it is developing a new facial recognition system with an improved, independently tested algorithm to minimise errors.
Loading ...