At the city of Detroit will pay $300,000 to people wrongly accused of shoplifting. And as part of the settlement with the men, the city will change the way police forces use facial recognition technology to identify suspects,
Robert Williams’ driver’s license picture was mistakenly marked as a match for the man caught on surveillance video in the robbery of a Shinola watch store in 2018. Williams was arrested two years later in front of his wife and two daughters in their front yard in the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills. .
“We are very excited that going forward there will be more security in the use of this technology in the hope that we can live in a better world because of this, even if what we want is not to use it. “said Williams, according to The Associated Press.
Williams, who is black, was held in jail for more than 24 hours and defended himself in court before the charges were eventually dropped, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which says facial recognition technology is flawed and racially biased. has a higher rate of false matches for Black people.
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The city of Detroit has agreed to pay Robert Williams $300,000 after he was wrongly accused of shoplifting using facial recognition technology. (Drew English/ACLU via AP)
Williams is one of three men, all of whom are Black, wrongly arrested after Detroit police used facial recognition technology in an effort to identify the suspect, the ACLU said in a press release announcing the agreement.
Police Chief James White announced the new policy last August, while the trial was pending, regarding facial recognition technology. It comes after a woman who is eight months pregnant says she was wrongly accused of carjacking.
White said at the time there must be more evidence beyond technology for police to believe the suspect has “the means, ability and opportunity to commit a crime.”
As part of the settlement with Williams, Detroit police will be prohibited from arresting people based solely on facial recognition results and cannot make arrests based on photo lineups created from facial recognition searches, according to the ACLU.
“The Detroit Police Department’s misuse of facial recognition technology has completely ruined my life,” Williams said in an ACLU press release. “My wife and young girls had to watch helplessly as I was arrested for a crime I didn’t commit and when I got home from jail, I missed the youngest who lost her first tooth and the oldest couldn’t stand to see my photo, even now, years later, she still tears up when she thinks about it.
The police department will also conduct an audit of all cases from 2017 to 2023 that rely on facial recognition technology to obtain arrest warrants. The prosecutor will be informed if the police find that the arrest was made without independent evidence.
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As part of the settlement, Detroit Police will be prohibited from arresting people based solely on facial recognition results and cannot make arrests based on photo lineups generated from facial recognition searches. (iStock)
“Police reliance on poor technology only creates poor investigations,” said Phil Mayor, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Michigan. “In this settlement, the Detroit Police Department must transform from being a national leader in wrongful arrests driven by facial recognition technology to being a leader in implementing effective safeguards to limit and limit the use of such technology.”
The mayor told The Associated Press that police can find facial recognition leads and then do “old fashioned police work” to see if there is reason to believe the person identified may have committed a crime.
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Williams is represented by the ACLU and the Civil Rights Litigation Initiative at the University of Michigan Law School.
“We hope that this groundbreaking settlement will not only prevent future wrongful arrests of black people in Detroit, but will serve as a model for other police departments that emphasize the use of facial recognition technology,” said Michael J. Steinberg, director of Civil. Rights Litigation Initiative at the University of Michigan Law School.
“We are also pleased that Mr. Williams, who has become the face of the movement to end the misuse of facial recognition, will get some relief.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
