The Detroit Police Department must adopt new rules limiting its reliance on facial recognition technology after the city reached a settlement this week with Robert Williams, a Black man who was wrongfully arrested in 2020 due to a facial match. false. However, this is not a complete ban on the technology and the court's jurisdiction to enforce the agreement only extends to four years. Under the new restrictions, the Police cannot make arrests based solely on facial recognition results or conduct a lineup based solely on facial recognition clues.
Williams was arrested after facial recognition technology flagged the photo of his expired driver's license as a possible match to the identity of a suspected thief, which police then used to construct a series of photographs. He was arrested at his home, in front of his family, which, he says, “completely turned my life upside down.” Detroit police are known to have made at least two other wrongful arrests based on the results of facial recognition technology (FRT), and in both cases, the victims were Black, the ACLU noted in its announcement of the settlement. Studies have shown that facial recognition is .
The new rules stipulate that “an FRT tip, combined with a lineup ID, can never be a sufficient basis to seek an arrest warrant,” according to a summary of the settlement. There must also be “further independent and reliable evidence linking a suspect to a crime.” Detroit police will have to undergo training on the technology that addresses racial bias in its accuracy rates, and all cases dating back to 2017 in which facial recognition was used to obtain an arrest warrant will be audited.
In an opinion piece for technology-essay%2F” class=”link rapid-with-clickid etailiffa-link” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:TIME;elm:affiliate_link;sellerN:time;elmt:;cpos:5;pos:1;itc:0;sec:content-canvas”> Published today, Williams wrote that the agreement essentially means that “DPD can no longer substitute facial recognition for basic police investigative work.”
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