Grandmother spent six months in jail after AI facial recognition misidentified her

[jeffbert]

There are a few things wrong here, and the bail narrative should be removed from this conversation as it does not apply in this situation. She was held without bond due to an extradition order, plain and simple.

First, the judge in North Dakota failed miserably by not reviewing the evidence in the case. Any judge exercising sound judgment would not have allowed this to happen.

Second, the judge in Tennessee also failed by allowing her to be arrested based on nothing more than “that’s her,” relying on facial recognition software without stronger supporting evidence.

Third, she should have never been held that long in Tennessee, There needs to be a time limit by the issuing agency.

I agree that something needs to be done in situations like this. Average citizens should not be arrested randomly on very weak evidence. However, this issue has nothing to do with bail reform, it starts at the beginning of the process. We need to rethink and rewrite how arrest warrants are issued so innocent people are not arrested to begin with.

This is about improving the warrant process and protecting innocent citizens, not about allowing criminals to go free on signatures.

You guys really need to learn to look at the whole picture instead of spouting simple minded answers and narratives. This is about improving the warrant process and protecting innocent citizens, not about letting criminals walk free.

Her alibi might have been checked before even arresting her, especially given the nature of the crime of which she had been accused, and her occupation; who took charge of the kids she was babysitting? At the very least, maybe consider the disruption to her life before holding her for so long, and then whisking her away to another State, which is called Rendition. Extradition is to another nation.

 

[Loadedaxe]

Just wait till Peter 'I want to drone my opponents (critics) with drones' gets his hands on all of this data.

wtf are you on about?

 

[Tran Bronstein]

This woman should absolutely sue everyone involved. The Fargo police department, the individual detectives, the US Marshals and especially the facial recognition software maker. The government entities involved may be immune from criminal prosecution but they are not immune from civil liability and litigation. She should get after them.

 

[Endymio]

This woman should absolutely sue everyone involved. The Fargo police department, the individual detectives, the US Marshals and especially the facial recognition software maker.

The woman should sue only those who exhibited malfeasance and negligence: the Fargo PD. The US Marshals merely transport fugitives; they don't rule on the merits of a case. Nor did the software manufacturer do anything wrong: their role is merely to find individuals with similar facial features. They specifically state that a potential hit is just that -- and must be verified through other means.

Facial recognition suffers from the same "birthday paradox" problem as does DNA forensics. The odds of any two random DNA samples matching are so low as to be effectively zero. But if you searched a DNA sample against a database of the entire US, you'd get multiple matches. When the police fail to understand this, they wind up arresting the wrong individuals.

 

[daffy duck]

While I agree with the sentiment, in practice it would mean people with money and connections are even more protected because they can go after you with way more means, and can afford years long procedures.

Rich scumbags always find a way to keep out jail. I'd rather that than innocent people having their lives destroyed.

This case is beyond reprehensible. Fargo police officers should be sent to prison IMO and county forced to pay her ten's of millions of dollars compensation.

 

[Endymio]

Rich scumbags always find a way to keep out jail...

The penniless scumbag who recently set a random woman on fire on a Chicago subway had seventy two (72) previous arrests, and yet was still out of jail walking the streets. In his prior cases, judges repeatedly cited his "underprivileged" status as a reason for granting him leniency. And in fact, he was out on cash-free bail awaiting trial when he disfigured this woman for life.

The man who murdered 22-year old Logan Federico during a botched home invasion had committed 48 prior violent crimes in a single decade ... most of the cases against him were either dropped or he was given probation or suspended sentences, again due to his underprivileged status.

I can't think of any "rich scumbag" as successful as these two at avoiding jail. Can you?

 

[Norsiiii]

Governmental immunity should be waived in these cases. The government agents involved should also be held personally liable. Maybe if their personal assets are at stake, they’ll be a little more careful about wrongfully arresting someone.

Reckless indifference to known facts of the case (let alone intentionally acting contrary to the facts) should be an automatic disqualification of qualified immunity, I honestly cannot fathom how it isn't.

 

[Norsiiii]

Her alibi might have been checked before even arresting her, especially given the nature of the crime of which she had been accused, and her occupation; who took charge of the kids she was babysitting? At the very least, maybe consider the disruption to her life before holding her for so long, and then whisking her away to another State, which is called Rendition. Extradition is to another nation.

It's even more fundamental than that - facial recognition AI's should NOT be sufficient to establish probably cause, period.

Use it to flag up possibilities, help you find potential suspects to look further into, sure, I'm sure it's a super handy tool for that. But without actually substantiating a single other shred of circumstantial evidence tying a person to a crime, the mere fact alone that a shoddy facial 'recognition' program went 'bing' should never be sufficient lawful grounds to make an arrest

 

[Norsiiii]

2: Theoretically speaking: If the person in question was a multi-billionaire and could afford to pay bail, how would that be any different? All bail does is ensure the poor remain locked up, while the wealthy remain free, without taking into account who should/shouldn't be locked up pending trail (see my above point).

You aren't comprehending: the point sailing right over your head is that no form of bail AT ALL (whether cash-free or $10 million) should be offered - period - for certain classes of crimes with sufficient quanta of evidence at the time of indicting, especially where the accused has a documented violent history

What's so hard to understand about that? Whether we're talking about a billionaire or a street urchin, if someone is caught on video opening somebody's carotid artery in the street with a knife, they should not even have the OPTION of bail.

 

[gamerk2]

You aren't comprehending: the point sailing right over your head is that no form of bail AT ALL (whether cash-free or $10 million) should be offered - period - for certain classes of crimes with sufficient quanta of evidence at the time of indicting, especially where the accused has a documented violent history

What's so hard to understand about that? Whether we're talking about a billionaire or a street urchin, if someone is caught on video opening somebody's carotid artery in the street with a knife, they should not even have the OPTION of bail.

You convieniently forgot my first point, that addresses that specifically:

1: No-cash bail (or bail, period) should only apply to non-violent/non-risk-of-violence offenders, or those deemed a flight risk. There's always exceptions of course, but that works both ways. But jailing everyone indefinitely because they *might* turn violent, while waiting indefinitely for a trail date, is against the very core concepts of our judicial system.

 

[unoficialoficial]

This case highlights the critical gap between local rarity and global rarity, raising concerns about violations of the principle of 'innocent until proven guilty'. For instance, arresting the first driver of a rare pink car seen near a bank robbery which happen with a pink car might seem logical locally, but ignores the millions of such cars nationwide, targeting almost for sure (only 1 in millions probability to be correct) an innocent person.

A more robust assessment of likelihood would involve considering multiple factors, such as the suspect's potential motivation, the prevalence of similar actions within their demographic, the seriousness of the alleged violation, the actual strength of connecting evidence, and the strength of potential counter-explanations. In the pink car example, the authorities likely overestimated the weight of the car's rarity (a positive indicator for presence at the scene) while underestimating other factors pointing away from guilt (negative indicators).

 

[StrikerRocket]

This is what I've been saying all the time: if you let AI take over, people get dumber and dumber. If you don't see/use AI as just a tool, then, you are becoming dependent on a machine that is far from perfect, and you lose skill and a whole lot of other important things that lead to this kind of blunder.
Those police officers should be sued, but, more importantly, policies should be changed and AI use rules must be implemented to prevent this kind of mishap!
Imagine that, losing your home, car and belongings because some dumb*ss did not care to check or believe that you were telling the truth!

 

[jeffbert]

This case highlights the critical gap between local rarity and global rarity, raising concerns about violations of the principle of 'innocent until proven guilty'. For instance, arresting the first driver of a rare pink car seen near a bank robbery which happen with a pink car might seem logical locally, but ignores the millions of such cars nationwide, targeting almost for sure (only 1 in millions probability to be correct) an innocent person.

A more robust assessment of likelihood would involve considering multiple factors, such as the suspect's potential motivation, the prevalence of similar actions within their demographic, the seriousness of the alleged violation, the actual strength of connecting evidence, and the strength of potential counter-explanations. In the pink car example, the authorities likely overestimated the weight of the car's rarity (a positive indicator for presence at the scene) while underestimating other factors pointing away from guilt (negative indicators).

One reason to not have bumper stickers.