University of Dundee and Lancaster University researchers are using artificial intelligence (AI) to automate the process of linking suspects to child abuse footage using images of hands.

The current system means scientists must look at footage of child abuse, and use features such as matching blood vessels and movement to compare and match hands with suspected child abuse offenders.

But the process is time consuming and requires a lot of manpower, with single cases sometimes taking up to two weeks with an 86% success rate.

The researchers are now calling on 5,000 members of the public, which they call ‘citizen scientists’, to “contribute images to the world’s first searchable database of the anatomy and variations of the human hand”.

Algorithms will scan the database to find details that match a pair of hands to those of a suspected criminal. This new database could potentially be used to help identify tens of thousands of paedophiles daily and with a higher success rate.

The first-of-its-kind technology, called H-Unique, is being developed in a five-year programme with €2.5 million (£2.1 million) in funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

Sue Black , professor and pro-vice-chancellor for engagement at Lancaster University, whose previous research the project is based on, said: “The hand retains and displays many anatomical differences due to our genetics, development, environment or even accidents so each person’s hands are different.

“Now, for the first time, researchers will analyse all the factors that make a hand truly unique so we can understand and use them reliably as evidence to identify individuals.”

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Lead researcher on the H-Unique programme, Bryan Williams, told The Telegraph that the project requires “a huge variety of hands”.

He said: “We want to be able to identify how to pick out blood vessels on white skin, on Chinese skin, so we need a huge variety of ethnicities and a huge variety of age ranges as well.

“We’re asking the public to use our app to take pictures on their phones, and then send them into the project.”

The images will be submitted anonymously through the app, will not be shared with any external agencies, and destroyed once the project has ended.

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