Man sues law enforcement alleging AI facial recognition technology led to wrongful arrest
A Florida man is suing multiple law enforcement agencies after he alleges he was wrongfully arrested due to flawed AI facial recognition technology.
"I don't wish this on my worst enemy," Robert Dillon, a father of one, told ABC News.
Police body camera video footage, obtained by ABC News affiliate Gulf Coast News, shows Dillon's 2024 arrest outside his San Carlos Park home.
"I was basically telling them this is crazy. I have no idea who did this, but it's not me," Dillon recalled of the arrest.
Authorities had been searching for a suspect who allegedly tried to lure a child at a Jacksonville Beach restaurant, more than 300 miles away from Dillon's home.
"To be accused of a heinous crime of that nature, I'm thinking I may not be coming back home," Dillon said.
During their investigation, authorities allegedly fed "poor quality" surveillance images of the suspect into an AI-powered facial recognition program, which scanned facial features and found photos of the suspect and Dillon were allegedly "a 93% match," according to Dillon's lawsuit.
Dillon said he knew he had been incorrectly identified, because he had never been to Jacksonville Beach.
"I argued with the police officer for 20 minutes, and he insisted that 'I know that I'm looking at your mugshot,'" he said.
The state attorney's office dropped Dillon's case weeks after his arrest, but Dillon said it took nearly a year to get the arrest wiped from his record, with help from the American Civil Liberties Union.
Dillon and the ACLU are currently suing several law enforcement authorities and agencies, including the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, which oversees the use of the AI facial recognition technology across Florida.
"Despite [a] well-documented history of [facial recognition technology]-driven wrongful arrests, neither Jacksonville Beach PD, [Jacksonville County Sheriff's Office], nor [Pinellas County Sheriff's Office] implemented safeguards sufficient to prevent exactly the type of wrongful arrest that occurred in Mr. Dillon's case," the lawsuit alleges.
It further alleges that Dillon's arrest was "the predictable consequence of Jacksonville Beach PD's failure to provide its officers with the training, guidance, and supervision necessary to use [facial recognition technology] in a constitutionally compliant manner."
The Jacksonville Beach Police Department and Jacksonville County Sheriff's Office both said they were unable to comment on Dillon's case and lawsuit when reached by ABC News.
The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office said in a statement, "The assertion in the lawsuit that PCSO failed to train [officers in the facial recognition technology] is patently false."
It stated that training for the facial recognition program "is unequivocally clear" that the technology is "an investigative tool only."
"Facial recognition results are never 'matches,'" the sheriff's office said. "Independent investigation is required to determine whether any person in a photo array return in the facial recognition system is the person who committed a crime requires a law enforcement officer to determine probable cause through independent means."
It added, "Proper safeguards were in place to require that the system be properly used. It was wrong for the JBPD officer to determine probable cause existed to arrest someone solely based on their photo appearing in a facial recognition photo array. Liability for doing that rests solely with any officer who did so, and certainly not PCSO."
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