Questions arise over the use of an AI crime-fighting tool

With the rise of artificial intelligence technologies, law enforcement has increasingly been using AI tools to assist in solving crimes — and even putting people behind bars. But now one of these tools, a software program known as Cybercheck, is in the hot seat.

Cybercheck "uses advanced machine learning algorithms to analyze vast amounts of data, including witness statements, digital forensic evidence, mobile signaling, and other cyber profile data," according to its website. This may be particularly helpful in finding evidence that human investigators may have missed. But several investigators have alleged problems with using the AI tool and criticized its founder, Adam Mosher.   

Why is Cybercheck being questioned? 

A report from Business Insider brought concerns about Cybercheck into the mainstream conversation. In particular, questions "have been raised about the program and its reliability," said Business Insider. This is especially pertinent since there are "many criminal defendants whose fates were determined in part by Cybercheck's secret algorithm." 

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

This includes Adarus Black, who was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of a drive-by shooting murder. Prosecutors "had no direct evidence tying Black to the location of the murder," said Business Insider, but Mosher testified in court that Cybercheck used its algorithm to triangulate Black's cellphone and "place him within a few feet of the crime scene with more than 90% accuracy." Jurors later "said they would not have convicted Black without Mosher and his Cybercheck report."

But while there are concerns about the methodology of the program, defense attorneys "face an uphill battle in trying to challenge the reliability of evidence generated using AI," said Business Insider.  Companies like Cybercheck can "argue the algorithms and training data that power these AI tools are proprietary trade secrets of the private companies that develop them and therefore can't be disclosed." Often, prosecutors don't have access to the AI's source code, meaning it "falls to local judges, who likely don't have doctorates in computer science or an understanding of high-level matrix math, to decide whether to grant access to the defense." Mosher's in-court testimonies also led to criticism, as one attorney "called out inconsistencies in Mosher's résumé, including trials he claims to have testified in that never happened and a university peer review that was never performed."

Who is fighting Cybercheck in court? 

Beyond investigations into Cybercheck and similar programs, some challenges are also being mounted in courtrooms. In one case in Akron, Ohio, a forensics company hired to review the evidence in a murder case "submitted a report to the court calling into question 'the accuracy and legitimacy of the CyberCheck system' for producing two identical reports with different dates," said Business Insider. The report added that it is "implausible that the same number of cyber profile hits, for the same cyber profile, was picked up by the same wireless routers at the same time on two different days."

As Cybercheck's use has spread, "defense lawyers have questioned its accuracy and reliability. Its methodology is opaque, they've said, and it hasn't been independently vetted," said NBC News, which also released an investigative report on Cybercheck. By 2023, the tool "had been used in nearly 8,000 cases spanning 40 states and nearly 300 agencies," but some judges and prosecutors have pushed back against its use. In New York, a judge "barred authorities from introducing Cybercheck evidence last year after having found that prosecutors hadn't shown that it was reliable or well-accepted, the decision shows," while in another case in Ohio, a judge "blocked a Cybercheck analysis when Mosher refused to disclose the software's methodology."

The criminal justice system is "being asked to trust a company to present evidence that could eventually put people in prison," William Budington, a staff technologist with the civil liberties organization Electronic Frontier Foundation, said to NBC. This "goes against the right to due process."