[Where are 4th Amendment Rights When You Need Them?] Black Man Spends 30 Hours in Jail After Detroit Cops Use AI Technology to Misidentify Him [rights are myths, words on paper that protect no one]
Can you imagine getting arrested and spending time in jail for a crime you never committed?
Well, that is exactly what happened to a Detroit man named Robert Williams after facial recognition technology misidentified him in a criminal case.
With the meteoric rise of Artificial Intelligence, which is defined as “the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems,” according to Tech Target, it’s no surprise that it’s becoming increasingly common to use facial recognition technology when it comes to solving crimes, right?
Well, in 2018, a Shinola store’s security cameras captured a person stealing watches, Newsweek reported. Then, a couple years later on Jan. 9, 2020, a Black man named Robert Williams was arrested in front of his wife and two young daughters for the crime — but he had nothing to do with it. Even worse, he wasn’t informed of the reason for his wrongful arrest, leading him to spend 30 hours behind bars.
“The day I was arrested, I had no idea it was facial recognition,” Williams told Newsweek. “I was arrested for no reason.”
Following Williams’ wrongful arrest, James E. White, chief of the Detroit Police Department, issued a statement that in part read: “There are a number of checks and balances in place to ensure ethical use of facial recognition, including: use on live or recorded video is prohibited; supervisor oversight; and weekly and annual reporting to the Board of Police Commissioners on the use of the software.”
Despite the police department’s statement, Alex Najibi at Harvard University shared that advocates worry facial recognition programs are not always fair, especially when it come to Black people: “In 18th century New York, ‘lantern laws’ required enslaved people to carry lanterns after dark to be publicly visible,” Najibi wrote. “Advocates fear that even if face recognition algorithms are made equitable, the technologies could be applied with the same spirit, disproportionately harming the Black community in line with existing racist patterns of law enforcement.” [MORE]