DETROIT (WXYZ) — The Detroit Police Department and the American Civil Liberties Union have reached an agreement over police use of controversial facial recognition technology.
The ACLU called it a “landmark settlement” that “achieves the strongest police department policies and practices in the nation to restrict law enforcement’s use of this dangerous technology” and will reduce “the likelihood of wrongful arrests of people of color and women, who are disproportionately likely to be misidentified by facial recognition technology.”
The agreement stems from the case of Robert Williams, who told 7News Detroit Investigator Heather Catalo in 2020 that he was wrongfully arrested because of the Detroit Police Department’s use of a facial recognition software program.
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The 42-year-old is accused of stealing a Shinola watch worth $3,800 during the October 2018 incident.
Williams said the photo on her driver’s license was compared to grainy security camera footage of the man inside the Shinola store.
The Wayne County prosecutor later dismissed the case, but Williams’ attorney told Catalo that Kym Worthy’s office and DPD refused to turn over evidence in the case, despite repeated requests and court orders.
As a result, the ACLU of Michigan filed a formal complaint in June 2020, demanding a formal apology.
7 News Detroit also reported a similar incident in 2023.
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According to the ACLU, key elements of the settlement include:
- Police would be prohibited from arresting people based solely on facial recognition results, or the results of sorting photos immediately following a facial recognition search.
- Police will also be prohibited from conducting mass arrests based solely on facial recognition investigative leads without independent and credible evidence linking a suspect to a crime.
- Police are being trained on facial recognition technology and educating them about its risks and dangers, including how it is more likely to misidentify people of color.
- An audit will be carried out of all cases since 2017 in which facial recognition technology has been used to obtain arrest warrants.
The court will enforce the agreement for four years. The city also agreed to pay Williams monetary damages and attorney’s fees.
“The Detroit Police Department’s misuse of facial recognition technology has completely turned my life upside down,” Williams said in a news release. “My wife and young daughters watched helplessly as I was arrested for a crime I didn’t commit, missed my youngest child’s tooth falling out when I came home from jail, and my oldest daughter couldn’t even bear to look at photographs of me. Even now, years later, my wife and daughters still tear up when they think about it.”
“The scariest thing is that what happened to me could happen to anyone,” Williams continued, “but at least this settlement will greatly reduce the chances that it will happen again to someone else in Detroit. Now that this painful chapter in our lives is over, my wife and I will continue to raise awareness about the dangers of this technology.”
“This settlement finally delivers justice for Detroit and the Williams family, who have fought for years to expose the flaws in this dangerous technology,” ACLU Michigan senior staff attorney Phil Meyer said in a news release. “Police reliance on poor technology only produces poor investigations. This settlement should transform the Detroit Police Department from a national leader in wrongful arrests via facial recognition technology to a leader in implementing meaningful guardrails to limit and restrict the use of the technology.”
Detroit Police released the following statement about the settlement:
At the time of Williams’ arrest, police department personnel were following a general policy that governed technology, suspect identification, and arrest procedures. After the incident, the department created a policy specific to facial recognition that requires three independent approvals before it can be approved for use in an investigation. The policy also clarifies that facial recognition matches can only be used as information to further an investigation, and cannot be used as a basis for naming a suspect in an investigation.
“The Police Department has been pleased with our collaboration with the ACLU and the University of Michigan over the past year and a half and is confident that the new facial recognition policy will serve as a national best practice and model for other agencies using this technology. While DPD and the ACLU’s work may differ, our goals are similar: to ensure that policing is conducted in a fair, impartial and constitutional manner.”
