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The Smart View CCTV scheme has helped police solve 2,192 criminal cases and arrest 2,831 people as of October 31, involving serious offences including murder, arson, burglary and robbery, police said.
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Chief Inspector Leung Yin-man of the Operations Bureau shared a case in which an octogenarian with dementia and hypertension went missing from a care home and lost contact with his family. With no mobile phone or Octopus card and no precise leads, the search was extremely difficult. Police entered the man's photo into the Smart View system using facial recognition, quickly pinpointing his last known location. Officers found him within 20 minutes, about an hour and a half after the report was made, and returned him safely.
Leung said finding missing people often requires large deployments and takes hours or even days, but with AI assistance the time could be cut to minutes, which is significant for saving the lives of high-risk missing people.
In another case, a robber who wore a hat and mask, changed clothes and used different transport to evade detection was captured by Smart View, which revealed his true appearance and movements. He was arrested about an hour after the report, 10 kilometres from the scene.
In a criminal damage case, police used Smart View's automatic number plate recognition to identify a suspect vehicle. The system showed the same plate appearing in two places too far apart to be reached in such a short time, suggesting a fake plate. Officers compared minor vehicle features and clarified the real plate before making an arrest.
Leung stressed that AI provides round-the-clock "precise leads" and greatly improves efficiency, but automatic number plate recognition and facial recognition are only tools to help officers filter big data. Final judgment, resource deployment and enforcement still rely entirely on officers' professional analysis and decisions.
