English-French translations for false positive

• fausse alerte
• faux positif
  Nous ignorons combien de terroristes ont été interpellés, combien d'attentats ont été déjoués et combien il y a eu de faux positifs. We do not know how many terrorists were caught, how many attacks were prevented and how many false positives there have been.
  La Commission cherche donc à mieux clarifier ces critères avec les autorités américaines afin de prévenir tout faux positif à l’avenir. The Commission is, therefore, seeking to better clarify these criteria with the American authorities, in order to prevent future cases of false positives.

Definition of false positive

• A result of a test that shows as present something that is absent
• type I error

Examples

• A false positive from a cancer screening test will unnecessarily frighten a healthy person; a false negative will deprive them of timely treatment.
• A false positive can be returned on a password checking algorithm when the password is tested against a dictionary but the password does not contain a dictionary word.

Related words

• false position
• false position method
• rule of false position