A man in the United States who tracked his ex-girlfriend’s location on a social media app and then killed her when she got home has been sentenced to life in prison on Thursday. According to People, Aldrick Scott was found guilty of first-degree murder in March, more than a year after the disappearance of his former girlfriend Cari Allen. Initially, cops charged Scott with kidnapping, however, they later determined that he tracked her location on Snapchat and drove to her home, where he waited until she arrived before shooting her. 

Cari Allen, 43, vanished in November 2022. She was on a date at a restaurant when her former boyfriend tracked her location. According to ABC News affiliate KETV, during the trial, prosecutors alleged that Scott waited for the 43-year-old in her home after following her. He reportedly drove from Topeka, Kansas, to Nebraska, followed Ms Allen through Snapchat maps, then waited for more than an hour in her home and murdered her, before fleeing the country. 

Aldrick Scott was eventually arrested in Belize. Ms Allen’s body was found in a shallow grave. 

“It’s that typical thing with regard to domestic violence, cases of control, and if I don’t have control or if I can’t have you, no one will,” Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said, according to the outlet.

The judge said, “It was clear that you could not take the breakup with Cari Allen, your obsession motivated the crimes you stand convicted of.” 

“So, her life’s taken because he’s upset and he doesn’t get what he wants,” Mr Kleine added. 

At the sentencing, the judge called Ms Allen’s murder “senseless and tragic” and said there was “overwhelming evidence of the crimes.” 

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Moreover, the judge and prosecutors also noted that Scott never showed any emotion or remorse during the trial or sentencing. “I never saw any sign of that in this case whatsoever from the defence about any remorse, any sorrow, any anything whatsoever,” Mr Kleine said.

The defence, on the other hand, alleged that Scott and Ms Allen had recently broken up and when Scott went to talk to Ms Allen at her home in 2022, something happened, claiming he acted in self-defence and ran in panic. 

On Thursday, Scott was sentenced to life in prison plus 45 to 60 years in prison. 

Snapchat may have failed to properly assess privacy risks to children from its artificial intelligence chatbot, Britain’s data watchdog said on Friday, adding it would consider the company’s response before making any final enforcement decision.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said if the U.S. company fails to adequately address the regulator’s concerns, “My AI”, launched in April, could be banned in the UK.

“The provisional findings of our investigation suggest a worrying failure by Snap to adequately identify and assess the privacy risks to children and other users before launching ‘My AI'”, Information Commissioner John Edwards said.

The findings do not necessarily mean the instant messaging app used largely by younger people has breached British data protection laws or that the ICO will end up issuing an enforcement notice, the regulator said.

Snapchat said it was reviewing the ICO’s notice and that it was committed to user privacy.

“My AI went through a robust legal and privacy review process before being made publicly available,” a Snap spokesperson said. “We will continue to work constructively with the ICO to ensure they’re comfortable with our risk assessment procedures.”

The ICO is investigating how “My AI” processes the personal data of Snapchat’s roughly 21 million UK users, including children aged 13-17.

“My AI” is powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the most famous example of generative AI, which policymakers globally are looking to find ways to regulate in light of privacy and safety concerns.

Social media platforms, including Snapchat, require users to be 13 or over, but have had mixed success in keeping children off their platforms.

Reuters reported in August that the regulator was gathering information to establish whether Snapchat was doing enough to remove underage users from its platform.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)