Man is Wrongfully Jailed For Heinous Crime Due To Facial Recognition Technology
A random man was wrongfully arrested after AI facial recognition technology accused him of a serious crime that he never committed.
51-year-old Robert Dillon, of Lee County, Florida, found himself the victim of a false arrest last year when AI facial recognition technology used by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office misidentified him.
In August last year, Dillion was handcuffed outside his San Carlos Park home, accused of trying to lure a 12-year-old child at a restaurant more than 300 miles away in Jacksonville Beach for an incident back in November of 2023.
According to a police report reviewed by local outlets Gulf Coast ABC/ WZVN-TV and Action News Jax, Robert Dillon was linked to a suspect seen in surveillance footage from a Jacksonville Beach McDonald’s using facial recognition technology employed by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. The system, which uses AI to analyze digital images or video, matched Dillon with 93% confidence.
Investigators then showed two witnesses a photo lineup that included Dillon and several similar-looking individuals. Both witnesses identified Dillon as the suspect, which led to his arrest — nine months after the incident occurred.
‘Everything They Did Was Wrong’
The case was later dropped entirely, and the arrest will be removed from Dillon’s record. The Jacksonville Beach Police Department has refused to comment on the incident.
“They wrongly arrested me. They wrongfully accused me. Everything they did was wrong,” Dillon tells Gulf Coast ABC/ WZVN-TV.
“When we’re wrong, we’re held accountable for our actions. They want to put us in a jail cell. But when they wrong the citizens of Florida, it’s just no big deal. Gets brushed under the carpet.”
“Police are not allowed under the Constitution to arrest somebody without probable cause,” Nate Freed-Wessler with the American Civil Liberties Union says in a statement to Action News Jax. “And this technology expressly cannot provide probable cause, it is so glitchy, it’s so unreliable. At best, it has to be viewed as an extremely unreliablility lead because it often, often gets it wrong.”
The case is certainly not the first false arrest based on facial recognition technology.
Multiple cities have banned the use of facial recognition technology by police departments, as have some states. However, there is no federal rule against its use. In fact, a report revealed that the FBI had tested widespread facial recognition software on American citizens for almost a decade.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
