Sue Black has dedicated her life to catching child sex abusers. The crime itself is unusual, as perpetrators will often record themselves in the act. Generally, they don’t show their faces, but sometimes abusers’ hands are visible. And, as it turns out, vein patterns in people’s hands and forearms are pretty unique. Through a project called H-Unique, Sue and her team at Lancaster University are asking the public to send photos of their hands. With the public’s help, they want to enable AI to catch child sex abusers across the world in a fraction of the time it takes right now.
In the fight against some of the world’s most horrendous crimes Sue explains that although DNA has often been the gold standard, hands may hold the key to catching sex abusers. In Super Users, we go down an internet rabbit hole to hear from people whose lives have become defined by their online presence.
