In 2020, Robert Williams was wrongfully arrested after facial recognition software mistakenly identified him as the culprit in a 2018 shoplifting incident. Police in Detroit, Michigan detained Williams for more than 30 hours after it was clear he had no involvement in the crime.
Williams eventually sued, and last month the suit was settled, with Williams receiving $300,000 in damages for her wrongful arrest.
be Amended Complaint Detroit police’s decision to seek an arrest warrant for Williams last year was based primarily on the results of an investigation using facial recognition technology.
The lawsuit alleges that the officers should have known right away that the results of facial recognition software were unreliable. “The surveillance camera footage was dark, the shoplifter’s hat obscured his face, and the shoplifter never looked directly at the camera,” the lawsuit states. “Facial recognition technology is notoriously flawed and unreliable under the best of circumstances, which is one of the reasons many jurisdictions ban its use.” The lawsuit also says facial recognition technology is “particularly unreliable at identifying Black people,” which may have led to Williams, who is Black, being misidentified.
Despite these flaws, Detective Donald Bussa, who led the investigation, relied almost entirely on facial recognition software and did not investigate Williams’ whereabouts at the time of the crime (he was driving home from work in a Detroit suburb) or interview any employees who were working at the store when the incident occurred.
Instead, Bussa took a surprisingly sloppy approach to establishing Williams’ responsibility. Bussa “lined up six photos of Williams with his driver’s license photo from that time and five other photos,” and then “attached the photo to a computer.” [the store] “Williams was not in the store on the day of the crime and I only viewed the same grainy surveillance video that defendant Bussa already had in his possession,” the defense said. After employees misidentified Williams as the perpetrator, Bussa prepared an arrest warrant.
According to the criminal complaint, Williams was held for hours after his arrest before being interviewed by police. Once the interview began, his suspected crimes quickly became clear. When officers showed Williams security camera footage from inside the store, Williams held it up to his face and said, “That’s not me. Can’t you see?”
Even after police realized they had the wrong guy, it took another eight hours for Williams to be released, and it took nearly two weeks for the charges against him to be dropped.
Williams is Litigation The lawsuit was filed against the Detroit Police Department in 2020. Last month, the suit was settled and Williams receive According to the Associated Press, Detroit police asked for $300,000. As part of the settlement, the department also agreed to conduct audits of all cases “in which facial recognition technology was used to identify investigative leads that led to an arrest or the issuance of an arrest warrant.”
“I’m excited that going forward, there will be increased safeguards around the use of this technology, which will make us a better world to live in,” Williams said. Said “We wish they wouldn’t use it at all,” journalists said last month.