Madeleine McCann disappeared on May 2007 while vacationing with her family in the seaside village of Praia da Luz, in Portugal’s Algarve region.
She was four years old at the time she vanished from the hotel room and was never seen again. The investigation around her disappearance continues up until this day and her mom and dad, who were considered suspects at one point, say they never lost hope of finding their daughter.
Recent developments brought Madeleine’s case under the international spotlight. Authorities were reported to be questioning a new suspect, a German who was living in Portugal at the time of the girl’s disappearance and is serving a prison time for an unrelated crime related to sex and drug offence. This isn’t the first time, however, for the police to have a suspect for Madeleine’s case so we have to wait for the outcome and hope her family will finally get to see their daughter again.
Happy Birthday to #MadeleineMcCann who would be 17 years old today..
God Bless her wherever she may be.. 💕💕#McCann pic.twitter.com/jviNtoB67W— 00The Jules… 🕵️♀️ 🐌🌸🐌🌸🐌🌸 (@Jules1602xx) May 12, 2020
May 12th would mark Madeleine’s 17 birthday and Bradford University professor Hassan Ugail created a photo of what could she look like today using advanced AI.
According to him, this computer-based modeling system is the best in the world thus he is convinced the representation is accurate.
“We have taken in a huge database of people from different ethnicities, different races and obviously different gender and we have asked the machine-learning algorithm to actually learn about how humans age,” Professor Ugail said.
Madeleine McCann – the little girl who disappeared 13 years back. Today’s her 17th birthday. And we predict this is how she would look like now. #MadeleineMcCann pic.twitter.com/cTqSVZeofY
— Professor Ugail (@ugail) May 12, 2020
Ugail explained how people from different races and genders age differently and the algorithm works based on given preferences.
“We take a photo, it doesn’t matter what age the person is really, any age. So in the case of Madeleine it’s when she was three. Then first of all we get a picture of mum and dad and put it into the system and that provides our template and we put the age in as 17. When we say 17, we can’t guarantee that but it will be something like 15 to 17 in a two to three year range.”
He believes the photo will help the search as people may recognize her as someone they know. “Or even better if the police can run it through large databases and then identify potential looking people and then it can help with their investigation,” the professor added.