In a landmark case highlighting the potential pitfalls of facial recognition technology, Robert Williams has been awarded $300,000 after being wrongfully detained by Detroit police in 2020. The incident began when police used facial recognition software to compare Williams’ driver’s license photo to blurry CCTV footage of an alleged theft of expensive watches. This led to his erroneous arrest, despite clear evidence of his innocence.
Williams was traveling home from work at the time of the crime, and yet he was arrested and held in jail for over 24 hours. He steadfastly maintained his innocence, and eventually, the charges were dropped. According to The Guardian, Williams’ case is the first documented instance of an individual being wrongfully detained due to facial recognition technology, which is increasingly used by law enforcement and government agencies across the United States.
Last April, Williams testified before the California Assembly, which is currently reviewing several proposals regarding police use of facial recognition technology. He stressed the dangers of the technology, stating, “It’s dangerous when it works and even more dangerous when it doesn’t work.”
In a letter to the California Assembly’s public safety committee, he elaborated, “In my case, Detroit police were supposed to treat face recognition matches as an investigative lead, not as the only proof they need to charge someone with a crime.
They should have collected corroborating evidence such as an eyewitness identification, cell phone location data, or a fingerprint. They had none of that—just an out-of-focus image of a large Black man in a baseball cap that a faulty algorithm had determined was me.”
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Williams recounted the emotional toll the wrongful arrest took on him and his family in a release from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). “The Detroit Police Department’s abuses of facial recognition technology completely upended my life,” he said. “My wife and young daughters had to watch helplessly as I was arrested for a crime I didn’t commit, and by the time I got home from jail, I had already missed my youngest losing her first tooth, and my eldest couldn’t even bear to look at my picture. Even now, years later, it still brings them to tears when they think about it.”
He continued, “The scariest part is that what happened to me could have happened to anyone. But, at least with this settlement, it will be far less likely to happen again to another person in Detroit.” As part of the lawsuit settlement reached on Friday, the city of Detroit agreed to pay Williams $300,000 and implement changes to how police use facial recognition software in making arrests, as reported by the Associated Press.
The case underscores ongoing concerns about the reliability and biases of facial recognition technology, particularly against minority groups. A 2019 study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology found that while the technology works relatively well on white men, it often produces less accurate results for other demographics. Experts have attributed this discrepancy to a lack of diversity in the images used to train the databases.
Williams’ ordeal and subsequent victory serve as a crucial reminder of the need for stringent oversight and safeguards in the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement. The settlement not only compensates Williams for his unjust treatment but also prompts necessary reforms to prevent similar incidents in the future.
