DETROIT (WXYZ) — The Detroit Police Department and the American Civil Liberties Union have come to an agreement that covers the department's use of a controversial facial recognition technology.
The ACLU calls it a "groundbreaking settlement" that "achieves the nation’s strongest police department policies and practices constraining law enforcement’s use of this dangerous technology" and lowers "the likelihood of wrongful arrests, especially for people of color and women, who are substantially more likely to be misidentified by facial recognition technology".
The agreement stems from the case of Robert Williams, who told 7 News Detroit Investigator Heather Catallo in 2020 that he was wrongly arrested based on the Detroit Police Department’s use of the facial recognition software program.
ORIGINAL REPORT: “So the computer got it wrong.” Metro Detroit man calls for change after wrongful arrest due to facial recognition technology
The 42-year-old was accused of stealing $3,800 worth of Shinola watches, allegedly during an incident in October of 2018.
Williams told us his driver's license photo was compared to a grainy surveillance video image of a man inside the Shinola store.
The Wayne County prosecutor later dismissed the case, but Williams’ lawyers told Catallo, Kym Worthy’s office and DPD refused to turn over the evidence in the case, despite repeated requests and court orders.
That led the ACLU of Michigan to file a formal complaint in June 2020 seeking a formal apology.
7 News Detroit also reported on a similar incident in 2023.
ORIGINAL REPORT: Woman's arrest in carjacking case spurs call to end Detroit police facial recognition
According to the ACLU, the key components of the settlement include:
- Police will be prohibited from arresting people based solely on facial recognition results, or on the results of photo lineups directly following a facial recognition search.
- Police will also be prohibited from conducting a lineup based solely on a facial recognition investigative lead without independent and reliable evidence linking a suspect to a crime.
- Police training on facial recognition technology, including its risks and dangers and that it misidentifies people of color at higher rates.
- An audit will be conducted of all cases since 2017 in which facial recognition technology was used to obtain an arrest warrant.
The court will enforce the agreement for four years. The city has also agreed to pay monetary damages to Williams and attorneys' fees.
“The Detroit Police Department's abuses of facial recognition technology completely upended my life,” said Williams in a news release. “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.
“The scariest part is that what happened to me could have happened to anyone,” continued Williams. “But, at least with this settlement, it will be far less likely to happen again to another person in Detroit. With this painful chapter of our lives closing, my wife and I will continue raising awareness about the dangers of this technology."
“This settlement finally brings justice to Detroit, and the Williams family, after years of fighting to expose the flaws of this dangerous technology,” said Phil Mayor, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Michigan in a news release. “Police reliance on shoddy technology merely creates shoddy investigations. Under this settlement, the Detroit Police Department should transform from being a nationwide leader in wrongful arrests driven by facial recognition technology into being a leader in implementing meaningful guardrails to constrain and limit their use of the technology.”
The Detroit Police Department released the following statement about the settlement:
At the time of Mr. Williams' arrest, Department members were being guided by general policies governing technology, suspect identification, and arrest protocols. Following the incident, the Department created a policy specific to facial recognition that included three independent sign offs before being approved for use in an investigation. The policy also makes it clear that a facial recognition match can only be used as a tip to further and investigation, and that it cannot be used as the basis for someone being named as a suspect in an investigation.
The Department is pleased with its work with the ACLU and University of Michigan over the last year and a half and that our new facial recognition policy, we firmly believe will serve as a national best practice and model for other agencies using this technology. While the work DPD and the ACLU do may differ, our goals are similar - to ensure policing is done in a fair, equitable, and constitutional manner.
