Black American Man Files Lawsuit Against Police
"Facial Recognition More Error-Prone for Black People Than Whites"
An African American man in the United States, wrongly accused of theft due to facial recognition technology errors, has filed a lawsuit against the police.
According to the Associated Press on the 25th (local time), a man named Randle Kuran Reid filed a lawsuit on the 8th against the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office in Louisiana and its detectives for abuse of power and unlawful detention at the U.S. District Court in Atlanta, Georgia.
According to the complaint, Reid was arrested during a police crackdown in DeKalb County, Georgia, while driving during the Thanksgiving holiday last November. At that time, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office in Louisiana was seeking an arrest warrant and had issued a wanted notice related to a credit card theft incident that occurred in New Orleans in June of last year.
The Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office used facial recognition technology during the investigation of this case. The facial recognition technology compared the suspect's face captured on the crime scene's closed-circuit television (CCTV) with numerous driver's license photos and ultimately identified Reid as the suspect.
The detective in charge applied for the arrest warrant in court without disclosing the use of facial recognition technology, stating that the warrant was based on confirmation from a "reliable informant."
Reid, who was wrongfully arrested, was detained in jail for six days before being released. He claimed that during this period, he was unable to work, his car was towed, and he suffered from eating the wrong food in jail. Reid said, "If the police had conducted even a basic investigation, they would have known that I was in Georgia, not Louisiana, on the day of the crime."
The Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office has not made any specific statements regarding this matter. However, the AP pointed out that including Reid, there have been as many as five African Americans recently who were wrongly arrested due to facial recognition technology errors and have filed lawsuits.
Experts have noted, "Facial recognition technology shows more errors in recognizing faces of people of color, such as African Americans, compared to white people," adding, "Some states are restricting the use of facial recognition technology."
Earlier last month, a pregnant woman in the U.S. who was wrongly identified as a thief due to faulty facial recognition technology filed a damages lawsuit against the city and police authorities, claiming injustice.
According to foreign media, Forcha Woodroof (32, female) was arrested by six officers in February while preparing her two children for school. Woodroof's lawyer stated in the complaint, "The officers presented her with an arrest warrant charging her with vehicle theft," and "Woodroof thought it was a joke because she was heavily pregnant and had never done such a thing."
He continued, "It has long been widely known that facial recognition technology has many defects and low reliability when identifying African Americans," and pointed out, "The police must also recognize that facial recognition results cannot be a legitimate reason for arrest."
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