Have they published an estimate of how many innocent men with a vague resemblance to this picture will be lynched? Or the much greater number who will be shunned by their neighbours for the rest of their lives?

I got a picture of a presumably innocent (though shifty-looking) youth called Sam in an advert for Microsoft above the startled-looking paedophile.

Its that bloke in Corrie isn't it?

he looks like a large number of grey haired old blokes, I look forward to the lynch mobs.

If the government had a recent picture of absolutely everyone, taken under fairly uniform conditions with no background and no smiling allowed, they could kick off some massive photo matching operation on a google-sized server farm and eliminate the vigilante risk.

Since the gentleman in question has probably travelled around the world to pursue his predilection, he probably has a passport, so the government probably *do* have such a photo.

Whatever the match, they are going to get false positives. Lots of them. Whether it's matched by the police or reported by vigilantes.

So how are they going to investigate all these people? Presumably the only thing they can do is search their homes and steal^Wconfiscate all their computer equipment, then scan those computers for *anything* they think they can bring a charge on.

At best, all their victims will have this hanging over them for months or years. Quite probably their families will find out about the charge - "Dear, why are all those policeman searching our house?" If the police are their usual efficient selves the friends and neighbours will find out. And if the tabloids get their hands on it ...

There is no such thing as innocent until proven guilty for this.

Easy fix: Don't investigate this sort of crime at all. That's a semi-serious suggestion, since Interpol are presumably putting up this picture because they don't think there's any chance of identifying this guy from the billion or so possibilities. If this doesn't work, they'll have to give up.

Instead, they are going to use the general public as a massively parallel matching machine, grind that billion or so down to a few thousand (?) possibilities, at which point more traditional detective work might be able to take over.

Others have made the point that involving Joe public at this stage risks vigilante action, to an extent that might outweigh the advantages of finding this person.

My point was to wonder whether the passport picture database (that I imagine most governments now maintain) could be used instead of the combined memories of the general public. That avoids the vigilante risk entirely, but I've no idea whether the idea is feasible, yet. (I'm sure it will be, one day soon, with all the civil liberty issues that entails.)

From the article:

>> Kristin Kvigne, assistant director of Interpol’s Trafficking in Human Beings unit,

>> said in a statement. "Our duty as law enforcement officers is to

>> protect children and we believe this appeal, codenamed Operation IDent,

>> will help us do that."

Their duty is to protect children? Does that mean that they don't protect adults?

I thought their duty was to enforce the laws of the land, not to protect a particular segment of society. Or have I misunderstood their duties?