Incident 747: Fatalities Reportedly Occur Despite VioGén Algorithm's Low or Negligible Risk Scores

Description: The VioGén algorithm was designed to help Spanish police assess and prioritize the risk of repeat domestic violence incidents. However, its low-risk assessment of Lobna Hemid reportedly led to inadequate protection; her husband murdered her. Since 2007, 247 women have been killed after being assessed by VioGén. A review of 98 homicides found that 55 of the slain women were scored as negligible or low risk.

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Alleged: Spanish law enforcement agencies , Spanish Interior Ministry and VioGén algorithm development team developed an AI system deployed by Spanish law enforcement agencies and Spanish Interior Ministry, which harmed Women in Spain , Stefany González Escarraman , Spanish general public , María , Luz , Lobna Hemid , Eva Jaular and 247 women in Spain (unnamed).

Incident Stats

Incident ID

747

Report Count

Incident Date

2024-07-18

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An Algorithm Told Police She Was Safe. Then Her Husband Killed Her.

nytimes.com

nytimes.com · 2024

In a small apartment outside Madrid on Jan. 11, 2022, an argument over household chores turned violent when Lobna Hemid's husband smashed a wooden shoe rack and used one of the broken pieces to beat her. Her screams were heard by neighbors.…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.