INTERACTIVE IMAGES COULD REVOLUTIONISE POLICE LINE-UPS AND REDUCE THE NUMBER OF WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS

We're trying to identify criminal suspects all wrong, say psychologists. But new technology could help us catch more bad guys

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A group of psychologists has argued that police line-up procedures don't help us identify suspects effectively. They say their new interactive technology could improve the chances of witnesses picking out the right person.

Rather than having witnesses choose from photographs of potential suspects, the new tech, developed by researchers at the University of Birmingham, allows witnesses to 'click and drag' images of potential suspects' faces. Doing so allows them to pull a suspect's face to the same angle as when the witness encountered them.

The researchers found that this sort of interactive viewing improves the accuracy of witness selection by 42 per cent. Even compared to video line-ups - when the suspects are filmed turning from side to side - the new technology improved selection accuracy by 20 per cent.