Michigan man sues after facial recognition software leads to imprisonment
Facial recognition systems misidentify Asian and Black people up to 100 times more than white men. Yet, it remains in use in major cities.
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A man has sued Detroit police after a false facial recognition match led to him being wrongfully identified and subsequently arrested as a shoplifting suspect.
Robert Williams, a 43-year-old father who resides in the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills, was arrested in early January on charges that he stole watches from Shinola, a trendy accessories store in the city. Detroit Police used facial recognition software on the store’s surveillance camera footage and wrongfully identified him as the thief.
Detroit Attorneys representing a Farmington Hills man filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday seeking undisclosed damages from the city, its police chief and a Detroit police detective for the grave harm caused by the misuse of, and reliance upon, facial recognition technology.
The 75-page suit was filed on behalf of Robert Williams in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan by the University of Michigan Law School’s Civil Rights Litigation Initiative, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Michigan.
An ACLU press release Tuesday claimed: Mr. Williams’ experience was the first case of wrongful arrest due to facial recognition technology to come to light in the United States.
Robert Williams, 43, was arrested after being mistakenly identified as a shoplifter by Detroit police last June
Williams says his Michigan driver license photo - kept in a statewide image repository - was incorrectly flagged as a likely match to a shoplifting suspect
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed for damages against the city of Detroit, its police chief and a city detective The grave harm caused by the misuse of, and reliance upon, facial recognition technology, the lawsuit says
Several studies have shown current face-recognition systems more likely to err when identifying people with darker skin
Cities including San Francisco, Minneapolis, New Orleans and Boston have banned its use
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