The Legal Vacuum Around Artificial Intelligence In Criminal Investigations: A Human Rights Perspective

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in criminal investigations has established an unprecedented legal vacuum, which is likely to produce violations of fundamental human rights protections. This paper examines the contemporary landscape of AI usage in law enforcement; explores the salient gaps in legal framework; and analyzes the implications for human rights associated with the unregulated adoption of AI in various criminal justice systems. Conducting a comparative analysis of international jurisdictions involving relevant case law, gives evidence to the ways in which the total absence of an adopted legalistic response to AI in this context creates a blind spot for potentially discriminatory and rights violating practices. The paper ultimately offers a human rights-based framework for the regulation of AI in criminal investigations, by establishing AI's need for transparency in algorithms, mechanisms of accountability, and review by bias-sensitive courts. The findings of this paper suggest that without immediate legislative action, the fast-moving advances of AI will produce detrimental results capable of compromising centuries of legal protections and due process rights. Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Criminal Investigation, Human Rights, Legal Framework, Due Process, Algorithmic Bias