The city of Detroit has agreed to pay $300,000 to a man who falsely accused of shoplifting and also change the way police use facial recognition technology to solve crimes.
The conditions are part of a settlement with Robert Williams. His driver’s license photo was incorrectly marked as a likely match to a man seen on surveillance video at a Shinola watch store in 2018.
“We’re very excited that there will be more safeguards for the use of this technology in the future. We hope that it will allow us to live in a better world,” Williams told reporters. “Even though we wish they wouldn’t use this technology at all.”
The agreement was announced Friday by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Civil Rights Litigation Initiative at the University of Michigan Law School. They argue that the technology is flawed and racially biased. Williams is black.
Detroit police will be prohibited from arresting people based solely on facial recognition results, nor will they make arrests based on photo comparisons resulting from a facial recognition search, the ACLU said.
“They can get a tip through facial recognition and then go out and do old-fashioned police work and see if there is actually any reason to believe that the person identified … might have committed a crime,” said Phil Mayor, an ACLU attorney.
Detroit police had no immediate comment on the settlement. Last August, while the lawsuit was still pending, police chief James White announced new guidelines regarding the technology. The move came after a Woman who was eight months pregnant said she was wrongly accused of car theft.
White said at the time that there needed to be other evidence besides technology for police to believe a suspect “had the means, ability and opportunity to commit the crime.”
The agreement with Williams states that Detroit police will reinvestigate cases from 2017 to 2023 in which facial recognition was used. If police learn that an arrest was made without independent evidence, a prosecutor will be notified.
“When someone is arrested and charged based on a facial recognition scan and lineup result, they are often under significant pressure to plead guilty,” Mayor said. “This is even more true if the person – unlike Mr. Williams – has a criminal record and therefore faces longer prison sentences and more suspicious police and prosecutors.”