Detroit police believed Williams was responsible for stealing multiple watches from a local Shinola store. But it turns out that the police were wrong – misled by a computer algorithm, according to the ACLU. The Detroit Police Department did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
As the country boasts decades of police practices that have disproportionately affected black and brown communities, the incident hints at the personal cost that average Americans caused by the rapid spread of facial recognition by the police, and the enormous potential of such technology to misidentify people of color.
Facial recognition systems generally use software to link an image of a face with those stored in a database. The technology has been used everywhere, from concerts to airports, but privacy and civil liberties advocates, technologists, and lawmakers increasingly scrutinize it for concerns about algorithmic discrimination.
Williams, who is black, has now become a face of that movement. According to the ACLU complaint, Detroit police provided video surveillance of a black man who was stealing watches from a Shinola store to Michigan state police, who ran the footage through a facial recognition system and suggested a photo of Williams as a possible coincidence. Shanon Banner, a spokeswoman for the Michigan State Police, forwarded CNN questions about Williams’ case to Detroit police.
According to Banner, the policy of the Michigan State Police is not to use facial recognition as a form of positive identification.
“It is considered to be only an investigative lead, requiring the investigator to continue the criminal investigation before making any final determination, including arrest,” he said. “All lead investigation reports include the following statement at the top of the report: ‘This document is not a positive identification. It is only a lead investigation and is not a probable cause of arrest. More investigation is needed to develop a cause. probable arrest. ‘”
Banner did not explain how the software, allegedly sold to the state police by a company known as DataWorks Plus, suggested that the man in the video was Williams. However, police showed a list of head shots, including Williams’s, to a Shinola security guard who had not witnessed the robbery but had seen the video. The guard, the complaint says, identified Williams as the suspect.
Williams was later arrested, although he was released after questioning during which, as the complaint states, “it was clear that his arrest was based on a misidentification of facial recognition.”
With his complaint, the ACLU said, Williams hopes the Detroit Police Department, among other things, will publicly apologize to Williams and his family. The complaint also searches all department records related to Williams’ arrest, and asks Detroit police to stop using facial recognition as an investigative tool.
In surveillance footage used by police, the true suspect was wearing a St. Louis Cardinals hat, according to the complaint.
“Mr. Williams, a lifelong resident of the Detroit area, does not own that hat and is not a fan of the Cardinals,” the complaint said. “He is not even a baseball fan. However, he is black.”
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