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ACLU Sues After Facial Recognition Falsely Identifies Florida Man As a Child Abductor (reason.com) 79

Posted by BeauHD from the faulty-image-search dept.
fjo3 shares a report from Reason: Police arrested a man in Florida for attempted child abduction in a town he had never visited, and the only evidence linking him to the crime was an AI facial recognition hit. Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), he is now suing the officers and agencies who put him through it. [...] According to a police report, facial recognition software concluded with 93 percent confidence that the suspect was Robert Dillon. [...]

The ACLU is now suing the city of Jacksonville Beach, as well as the individual police officers and officials involved in the case. According to the lawsuit (PDF), the responding officer viewed security camera footage of the suspect but didn't take a copy; instead, he took pictures of the screen with his cell phone. "In the photos, the suspect image is low resolution, and the suspect's face is partially shadowed and off-axis," the lawsuit claims. When an investigator queried the facial recognition system, it was with the officer's grainy secondhand cell phone photos. [...]

But as the ACLU notes, facial recognition's accuracy "depends significantly on the quality of the probe image. Lower-quality images contain less interpretable facial data, degrading the system's ability to produce a reliable template." At the very least, it requires a much better source image. Besides, no such investigative tool should form the sole basis for an arrest warrant. "If you came to me with a facial recognition hit and that was your probable cause, I would probably kick you out of my office because that's not how it works," Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters told local news. (Waters is among those being sued in the ACLU lawsuit, because it was an investigator from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office who ran the grainy photo through facial recognition and advised O'Connell it was a "93% match" to Dillon.)
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ACLU Sues After Facial Recognition Falsely Identifies Florida Man As a Child Abductor More

ACLU Sues After Facial Recognition Falsely Identifies Florida Man As a Child Abductor

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  • Nip this in the bud (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pascoea ( 968200 ) on Thursday June 11, 2026 @03:14PM (#66186984)
    I hope this guy gets a good 7-8 figure settlement out of the people involved in this, and it leads other agencies to pause a bit before more people's lives are upended [valleynewslive.com] by lazy police departments. These systems are infallible, people using them as such need to feel the pain.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pascoea ( 968200 )

      These systems are infallible

      These systems are *NOT* infallible... my bad.

    • Exactly. My first thought was "this guy gets all the luck".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      The accusation alone can ruin somebody'd life.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      This keeps happening with every new forensic technique that comes along. Fingerprints, DNA, photographs, CCTV, handwriting analysis, audio recording verification from power line timing, computer image matching, it always gets abused and people always suffer until courts get wise to it and rules are made and precedents set.

      There needs to be a general rule for all new technologies that they are very carefully monitored and controlled, until the limitations are understood and demonstrably accounted for by law

      • And how's that going to happen if they don't use it? You can't find the unknown problems until you put it into real world testing. You'll make innovation impossible!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Targon ( 17348 )

          You use a new tool, but then, you do a VERIFICATION of the results. Think about it from a business standpoint, a new hire comes in, fresh out of high school or college, not much of an employment background, so the new hire starts, but isn't going to be working without any sort of supervision, to make sure that the job is actually done, and done correctly. Any team lead, supervisor, or manager that would let someone without a proven track record just start working without any oversight or verification ab

          • Yes. That is correct. And it is what happened. The only problem I see is that it took two months for them to verify his alibi, but I have no idea what kind of workload they face or what the usual turnaround time on that is.

            You don't arrest someone because you are certain they committed a crime. You do it because you have enough evidence to reasonably suspect they did, and don't want them to run away while the investigation continues. The prosecutor, not the cop, determines if there is enough evidence

    • For what? Being arrested, put on bail, and then having the charges dismissed? That happens. Sometimes, the wrong person gets arrested before the right one does. It sucks, but it is an inevitable part of law enforcement.

      Maybe they should cover his attorney's fee, because they failed to check his alibi, but that's it. He wasn't imprisoned, he wasn't put on trial, he was arrested and released.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Pascoea ( 968200 )

        For what? Being arrested, put on bail, and then having the charges dismissed?

        Yes. For that. And for the fact that this man's name will forever be in news articles as "Arrested for Child Abduction" because a lazy cop didn't bother checking his shoddy work. Nobody ever gives a shit about the retraction, if one is ever printed. (And, full disclosure, I could not find any articles of this guy around the time of the arrest. I have no clue if there are/were any. But just because it didn't happen THIS time, there will be others if this kind of negligence is allowed to continue.)

        That happens. Sometimes, the wrong person gets arrested before the right one does

        So when

        • You know who told me that you can't sue for being arrested for something you didn't do, even when the cop had no real basis for the arrest (i.e. less than a bad AI facial match)? The f-ing ACLU! We asked at the office!!

          And note that we aren't talking about someone who was held for months. I'm not discussing the merits of a case I know nothing about, and which isn't relevant to this guy's situation. This is a guy who was arrested, and after due process took its course, he was exonerated.

    • LOL. The path of lowest energy will always be taken. Spending millions of taxpayer dollars is nothing next to the hundreds of billions spent yearly.

      In other words, expect to be next on the accused list.

  • If you've done nothing wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PackMan97 ( 244419 ) on Thursday June 11, 2026 @03:14PM (#66186986)
    ...you've got nothing to fear. I guess that doesn't hold true any longer. Truth is it was never true.

    • Re:If you've done nothing wrong... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11, 2026 @03:21PM (#66187002)

      It was always just a sound bite from those who assumed themselves safe, blissfully unaware of Richelieu's quote.

      No one's suing because of what the computer said, it's perfectly fine to automate flagging for human followup.

      It's fucked up to automate execution. And if the human followup is just "the computer said" clowns you have not added a second stage.

      Humans will always gravitate to the laziest available route so unless the followup is forcibly built in you have not added any judgement or evaluation or review. You have a reverse centaur.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        Even the summary said the match was only 93% probable. That's a LONG way from any reasonable certainty. (Out of 1000 people you'd have 70 matches. If you don't do other steps of elimination, what is the size of the population you're screening?)

      • There are so many Richelieu's quotes.
        I assume you mean this one?

        "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him"

      • Humans will always gravitate to the laziest available route so unless the followup is forcibly built in you have not added any judgement or evaluation or review. You have a reverse centaur.

        Why did you post this as an Anonymous Coward? This is incredibly insightful. I am guessing it is because you actually are a coward :(

    • Also try not to get your image into the image recognition software's database.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Nonesuch ( 90847 )

        Also try not to get your image into the image recognition software's database.

        FACESNXT is fed from all Florida-issued photo IDs, including driver's licenses [palmbeachpost.com]. So pretty much every Florida resident is in the database.

    • As a child, I was constantly falsely accused. Less so as an adult. This is all status quo. As long as a finger is pointed, people are happy.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Targon ( 17348 )

        There are some crimes where the accusation alone is enough to ruin the life of a person, even if the person is later found to be innocent. Being a pedophile, rape, and murder are some of the big ones where if your name is linked to one of these types of crimes, you will quickly lose your job, and be blacklisted when it comes to getting another job. Later, a background search will still bring up, "known pedophile", even if you have been declared innocent, Google would find it for example.

        Now, if the poli

  • Because it was a smartphone image of some other screen, it was probably riddled with Moire patterns [wikipedia.org], further contaminating it for the facial recognition.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yep. All those pesky CRT sets out there.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by necro81 ( 917438 )

        Yep. All those pesky CRT sets out there.

        I recognize that it's on-brand for an AC to also be daft, but have you been living under a rock as well? What makes you think that any other monitor technology out there would be immune? Try this: pull out your smartphone and point its camera at the screen you're reading this on now. Notice the fringe-y rainbow patterns?

  • Florida is a pretty red state and here they are wasting tax dollars all over the place. Tax money wasted on the facial recognition tech. Tax money wasted on pursuing and processing a guy who had nothing to do with it and now more tax money wasted on having to pay this guy out. If this was CA I bet there would be nonstop Fox News and podcast slop about it.

    • The entire state of Florida is a grift, built by corrupt people for corrupt people.

      Everything in the state is geared to fuck regular people over at every turn and bend in the road. It's literally a huge grift made legal by calling it a "state", but other than that it's the equivalent of a 65,758 square mile used car lot filled with voracious con men.

      • And yet people move there in droves. Are you a Florida resident? I was for a while, and have no idea what you're talking about. Unless you're talking about the outrageous prices in the beachfront tourist towns. $11+ for a frozen patty on a stale bun? No thanks! I'm never eating at The Gulf again.

        If you don't like seafood, Ft. Myer/Destin is not a great place to go. Beautiful beach though. Food aside, I had a lovely time.

        • Do tell me more about how awesome Floriduh is....

          Florida’s low quality of life metrics primarily stem from a severe affordability crisis, an underperforming healthcare system, and struggling educational outcomes. Despite its robust economy, the state ranks near the bottom nationwide in several key well-being indicators.

          1. Affordability and Housing
          Worst for Renters: A national analysis by Consumer Affairs ranked Florida dead last as the worst state for renters, with

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      How’s that saying go? A fiscal conservative would spend a million dollars if it annoys a liberal for 15 minutes.

    • Why would he get paid off? It would be very unusual to get a settlement because the charges were dropped. This happens thousands of times EVERY DAY. 750,000 to 2.24 million times every year.

      It's pretty common for the cops to arrest the wrong person, realize it's the wrong person, and release them. It is inevitable and unavoidable. If every one of them received a payout, it would bankrupt the justice system in a week, make law enforcement impossible, and crash society.

      • Police misconduct settlements are about $4B per year. Not enough to bankrupt but that's quite a lot of our tax money. He might not but what if he does is more my point?

        While he was ultimately released, Dillon still had to suffer the indignity of not just being arrested, but being tarred as a possible child abuser... Even after the charges were dropped, it took an entire year for authorities to take down his mug shot and expunge the arrest from his record.

        I would want some money for that too considering t

  • You son of a bitch. Gratuitous close up of biceps

  • Favorite part ... hired him anyway (Score:5, Informative)

    by laughingskeptic ( 1004414 ) on Thursday June 11, 2026 @06:05PM (#66187254)
    O’Connell is an officer with a documented history of volatility and poor judgment, having previously been terminated from the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office for threatening to “blow up” the agency, later reinstated, then arrested for domestic battery before resigning under the weight of those charges. Jacksonville Beach PD hired him anyway, assigned him as lead investigator on a sensitive child luring case, and later promoted him to corporal after his investigation resulted in the wrongful arrest and prosecution of an innocent man.

  • Admissibility??? (Score:3)

    by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Thursday June 11, 2026 @06:26PM (#66187274)

    Ignoring the quality loss from a smartphone taking a picture of a screen, was this even a "work" smartphone? Why is the officer needing to use a secondhand image? Surely they had proper legal authority to just get a copy of the original footage.

    Sounds like the cop just whipped out his personal device and snapped a pic. How does that pass muster with collection of evidence, Chain of Custody... you know, that stuff that serves to prove the evidence wasn't tampered with in some way on the way to the D.A.?

    • Sounds like the cop just whipped out his personal device and snapped a pic. How does that pass muster with collection of evidence, Chain of Custody... you know, that stuff that serves to prove the evidence wasn't tampered with in some way on the way to the D.A.?

      Who cares? A guy was arrested for a crime that was committed. As long as someone was arrested, nobody seems to care.

  • Betting on 100-horse race (Score:3)

    by laughingskeptic ( 1004414 ) on Thursday June 11, 2026 @06:35PM (#66187296)
    This needs to be explained to the police in terms they understand: Would they bet on one horse in a race featuring 100 horses if the odds were all roughly the same? The way they are using this facial recognition software and running off and arresting the "best" match is statistically much dumber than betting on a 100-horse race.

    The software companies are at fault too. They should be returning ranking numbers that reflect the nature of the size of the U.S. population versus the trained data. The user should be looking at rankings with numbers like 0.000000931 instead of 93.1. The numbers the companies are using are designed first and foremost to give the impression that the software works -- these numbers are for sales purposes, not really an indication of how good a particular result is. The sales team would have a hard time making a sale if the numbers actually reflected the likelihood of correctness. Cyber security tools have the same problem -- their initial configurations are more about convincing the buyer the tool works than actually protecting their network.

    • Would they bet on one horse in a race featuring 100 horses if the odds were all roughly the same?

      Remember, they are betting with YOUR money and they are rated on the amount of bets they place. What do YOU think the outcome will be?

    • Would it matter? We're not dealing with statisticians, here, or even moderately smart people. Cops get hired not because they're smart; in fact, intelligence is sometimes a disqualifying aspect. So you have a cop who has a job where results are expected, and he gets a "result," right or wrong, and he acts on it. It's not surprising. Now, somewhere up the line, someone else smarter than the front line cop should've asked some clarifying questions to see if they made a mistake.
    • How about these terms:

      It happens, on average according to the ACLU, twice a year. Twice. As in 14 people over 7 years. (third to last paragraph of the article)
      Well over 140,000 people are arrested and then released after the charges are dropped every year. So "well over" that estimates range up to about 2.4 MILLION people arrested and released annually. And I guarantee you that more than 14 of them were arrested because of a bad visual ID.

      Sometimes, cops don't get the right guy on the first try.

  • It is the "think of the children" thing. Society will do anything to prevent harm. License plate readers, facial recog, ... It has always been true. Old movies about incorrect identifications that go very wrong with a mob that lynches someone. Even in a crises, it is important to take the right steps, otherwise the crises devolves into multiple disasters, not just the original crime.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by NadNad ( 550015 )
      Why does "think of the children!" allow arrest and possible conviction with weak or disproved 'evidence' but not consider the logical correlation "if we have the wrong person, that means the actual predator is still out there"?
      • Because the mob wants action now. The news story is about the kid until found, and the arrest makes the headlines, the later determined wrongful arrest is on page 10. As I said, it has happened throughout history, although to me it seems to be getting worse with modern culture. Maybe it is the short attention spans of today. Maybe it is the instant news. Not sure. I agree it is not logical, but it is.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Targon ( 17348 )

          Prior to the 1990s, communication was very primitive, and required manual work to see what happened one town over. The idea of "just flee to the next town/county/state" was enough to let someone who had violated the law just go somewhere else and start their life "fresh" with a new identity, because being able to look up the records from other places wasn't possible.

          In this case, it's not a person who incorrectly identified the person in a lineup, it is purely from AI being believed without any sort of v

  • Yes, QI is BS and has no place in a free society. But that's what they will claim.

  • Good lord! If he says I've never even been there, couldn't they at least check his cell phone location data? Unless it is turned off, it would show where he pretty much was.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Targon ( 17348 )

      That is why those police departments SHOULD have lawsuits going on for this case, because even basic verification wasn't done before the arrest was made.

  • FACES uses driver's license photos (Score:3)

    by Nonesuch ( 90847 ) on Thursday June 11, 2026 @09:55PM (#66187554) Homepage Journal

    The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office submitted the poor image to a statewide facial recognition database maintained by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office (PCSO), running a facial recognitio program called Face Analysis Comparison and Examination System (FACESNXT). This draws from a mix of sources including booking photos and all Florida state issued IDs and driver's licenses.

    So good luck keeping your face out of that database if you live in Florida.

  • They'd have better luck playing "Marco? Chomo."

  • This is not the kind of news I want to read about Florida Man.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )
      Florida Man has done almost anything but he ain't stolen no kids.

    • There are three kinds of tabloid narrative conflict:
      Florida Man against Nature
      Florida Man against Florida Man
      Florida Man against self

  • The question that any kind of "recognition" facility can answer is given a specific identity and some metric what is the likelihood that the metric comes from some rando and not the specified identity. Given enough identities, any confidence level will get you at least one match.

    This is why you never use the same sample to calculate a p value for multiple factors, and also why biometric passport gates *do* work (you are only comparing one metric against one identity).

    At a 93% confidence level, you'd expect

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