WTF?! Facial recognition systems aren't always accurate, and the consequences of these mistakes can be severe. One of the worst instances of AI getting things wrong is the case of Angela Lipps, a Tennessee grandmother who spent six months in jail after the technology linked her to a North Dakota bank fraud investigation.
A team of US Marshals arrested 50-year-old Lipps in Tennessee at gunpoint last July while she was babysitting four young children, writes InForum. She was booked into the county jail in Tennessee as a fugitive from justice from North Dakota.
But Lipps had never been to North Dakota in her life, and bank records later confirmed she was more than 1,200 miles away at the time of the alleged crime.
Lipps remained in a Tennessee jail for nearly four months without bail while awaiting extradition. She was charged with four counts of unauthorized use of personal identifying information and four counts of theft.
Fargo police records obtained by WDAY News show that the arrest was the result of an investigation into bank fraud cases in April and May 2025.
Detectives reportedly reviewed surveillance video of a woman using a fake US army military ID to withdraw tens of thousands of dollars. By using facial recognition software, the detectives identified the woman as Lipps.
One of the investigators compared Lipps' Tennessee driver's license and social media images to the suspect. The conclusion was that she appeared to match the real criminal based on facial features, body type and hairstyle.
Lipps said no one from the Fargo police department contacted her before the arrest. She was held in a Tennessee county jail for 108 days before being transported to North Dakota.
Lipps' attorney, Jay Greenwood, requested her bank records, which proved she had been buying cigarettes and depositing Social Security checks in Tennessee at the time police said the fraud occurred in Fargo.
Lipps was released from jail on Christmas Eve. She was stranded in Fargo with no money, coat, or way to get home.
Local defense attorneys gave Lipps money to pay for a hotel room and food on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. A local non-profit, the F5 Project, helped her return to Tennessee.
As she could not pay her bills from jail, Lipps has lost her home, her car and even her dog. She said no one from the Fargo police department has even apologized for what happened.
This is far from an isolated case. There have been several instances of Americans wrongfully arrested as a result of facial recognition incorrectly identifying them and detectives failing to check alibis or carry out further confirmation checks.
In 2020, Robert Williams was arrested after his driver's license photo was flagged as a likely match to a man seen stealing designer watches from a store in 2018. During questioning, Williams was told he was being arrested based solely on the results of a facial recognition lineup. Williams was innocent, the city of Detroit later agreed to pay him $300,000, and Detroit stopped making arrests based only on facial recognition software results.
AI doesn't just misidentify people. In October, a high school student was swarmed by police after an AI thought the Doritos bag he was holding was a gun.