Pakistani woman reunites with her family after 17 years with AI help

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.

“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.