ACLU of Michigan calls on Detroit police to stop use of facial recognition technology after woman claims she was falsely accused of crime
(CBS DETROIT) - There have been only six reported cases in the U.S. of facial recognition technology misidentifying a person as a suspect in a crime, and three of those have happened in the city of Detroit.
The latest is a Detroit woman named Porcha Woodruff, who says she was falsely arrested after the technology connected her to a carjacking case.
"In the Ms. Woodruff case, assuming the facts alleged there are true, she was eight months pregnant. All they had to do was literally look at her and look at the video of the incident to determine the suspect was not, in fact, pregnant," said Phil Mayor, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Michigan.
Woodruff is now suing the Detroit Police Department. It's the second such lawsuit DPD is facing over its use of the technology.
Mayor is representing Robert Williams in a lawsuit filed a few years back. He was the first reported person in Detroit to be falsely arrested due to the technology.
Williams claims he was falsely accused of stealing watches after the facial recognition technology identified him as the suspect.
Similar to Woodruff's case, Mayor says the police didn't do any further investigation that would've proved their innocence.
"Even when the most simple investigation would do the job, in our case, the Robert Williams' case, our client had an alibi. All they had to was ask and investigate that alibi," he said.
Mayor says the use of the technology is a dangerous practice that far too often disproportionately impacts communities of color.
"It's technology that misidentifies people with black faces at a particularly high rate, and they are insisting on using that technology in one of the most aggressive ways possible in one of the Blackest cities in America. It makes no sense whatsoever," Mayor said.
Retired Assistant Detroit Police Chief Steve Dolunt said there needs to be oversight in how the department uses the technology.
"We need strong policy procedure," Dolunt said.
Detroit Police Chief James White says he's reviewing the lawsuit and the department's policies and says he's not taking the allegations lightly.
"I'm looking at our policies to see if our policies were followed. If there are some improvement opportunities with the policy … we have strong policy, a number of different provisions in which you can use facial rec and when you can't," he said. "We are going to take this seriously."
White added, "I want to look at everything before I make a decision on where we go next."
Mayor and the ACLU of Michigan are calling on DPD to stop using the technology. Mayor says it needs to happen before another innocent person is victimized.
"What happened to Ms. Woodruff is horrible. We don't know how many are actually convicted of crimes and sitting behind bars and innocent because of the misuse of this technology. It's only because she could demonstrate through the shape of her body that they had the wrong person that Ms. Woodruff is a free person today," he said.
Mayor says the city council has the power to stop DPD from using the technology, and he's also calling on them to step in and end the practice.
CBS News Detroit also reached out to the attorney representing Woodruff, but we have yet to hear back.
