AI finds missing children through photos taken when they were toddlers

Artificial intelligence has helped seven victims of child trafficking reunite with their families, reported Beijing News.

Ten children were abducted from Sichuan Province in 2009 when they were around three years old. At the time, it was believed they had been sent to Guangdong Province.

Age-enhancing facial recognition AI was able to establish a link between the childhood photos and those of children around the age of 13 from a databank. It then rated resemblances on a scale of 1-100 to narrow down the field.

The seven children were located after three cross-checks.

Jiang Xiaoling with Sichuan police was delighted with the technology, especially since one family was only able to provide a photo when their child was still in his infancy.

Facial recognition tech also helped police find five missing children from 17 cold cases in Shenzhen.

After the successes in Sichuan and Shenzhen, many other provinces in China have requested the same AI technology with the hope of solving child trafficking cases.

Facial recognition results are not definitive. Meng Qingtian, deputy director of the human trafficking office at China's Ministry of Public Security, told Beijing News they still have to rely on DNA identification to make sure they've found the right person.

[File Photo: IC]