AI helps Pakistani woman reunite with family after 17 years

A Pakistani woman lost at age 10 was reunited with her family after 17 years, thanks to AI facial recognition used by the Safe City Project. Kiran, raised at the Edhi shelter in Karachi, was finally traced to her father through an old police report

Karachi: A ‘missing girl’ report from over a decade ago, facial recognition software and some latest AI technology have helped a young Pakistani woman to reunite with her family after 17 years.

Kiran, who goes by a single name, had lost her way and forgotten her house address when she had stepped out to buy ice cream in her neighbourhood in Islamabad in 2008.

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“I was lost and crying. I remember a kind woman took me to the Edhi Centre in Islamabad as I couldn’t remember anything,” Kiran, now 27, said here. A few days later, Bilquis Edhi, wife of late Abdul Sattar Edhi, who had founded the NGO ‘Edhi Foundation,’ came and took her to Karachi.

Since then, Kiran grew up under Bilquis’ care at the Abdul Sattar Edhi shelter home in Karachi. Sabah Faisal Edhi, wife of the foundation’s current chairperson, Faisal Edhi, explained how several trips were arranged to Islamabad to trace Kiran’s parents, but without success.

Earlier this year, the Foundation contacted Nabeel Ahmed, a cybersecurity specialist working with the Safe City Project in Punjab, an initiative launched in 2018 by the provincial government there. “We provided him with the latest photographs of Kiran and also whatever little information she could provide about her childhood and neighbourhood,” Sabah said.

Nabeel took a close interest in the case. He located a police report of a missing girl in Islamabad and, using the latest AI technology, facial recognition and tracking software, managed to track down the girl’s family.

Soon after, Abdul Majeed, a tailor by profession, reached Karachi to take his daughter home. He said he and his family searched for years for Kiran but were unable to trace her. “We even published her photo in some newspapers, but no one came forward (to find Kiran).”

Majeed said he had lost all hope of ever seeing his daughter again when officials from the Safe City Project in Punjab contacted him, saying they had traced his missing daughter. An overjoyed Kiran said, “I am sad to be leaving my family members here. I will always be grateful to Bilquis apa and her other family members for taking such good care of all of us.” Kiran is the fifth girl at the Edhi shelter home whose family has been traced, as the Foundation is now closely working with the police and Safe City Projects all over Pakistan.