Australian terrorism prediction tool considered autism a sign of criminality despite lack of evidence

Independent report into Vera-2R, released through FoI, found it was ‘extremely poor’ at predicting risk of offending

• Follow our Australia news live blog for the latest updates
• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

A tool designed to predict future crime in terrorist offenders considered them at greater risk of offending if they were autistic despite having no empirical basis to do so, an independent report has found.

The report into the Vera-2R tool, which was released to Guardian Australia and others under freedom of information laws, found a lack of evidence underpinning the instrument had “potentially serious implications for [its] validity and reliability” and found it was “extremely poor” at predicting risk.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup