There’s no doubt technology helps make everyone’s daily lives better, but it can also be terrifying. It is natural to ask oneself if society is moving too fast for its own good. One Black Detroit mom would probably say yes.
Porcha Woodruff, 32, is suing the city and a Detroit Police Department detective, claiming she was falsely arrested based on faulty facial recognition evidence. She filed the lawsuit on August 3, 2023, in hopes of recovering punitive and other damages. She also hopes that by sharing her story, this will not happen to anyone else in the future.
Woodruff was taken to jail without incident that day. One month later, the charges were dismissed due to insufficient evidence. When she learned that facial recognition helped lead to her arrest, she was moved to action.
Woodruff learned she was arrested based on a hit from facial recognition software. She was also identified by the carjacking victim, but the police chose to use an old mug shot instead of her more recent driver’s license photo. She believes both of these facts led to her alleged false arrest.
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“Facial recognition alone cannot serve as probable cause for arrests, as a computer’s identification is prone to errors that humans might also make,” her suit argues. “Despite its potential, law enforcement’s reliance on facial recognition has led to wrongful arrests, causing humiliation, embarrassment, and physical injury, as evident in this particular incident.”
The suit also argues that racial discrimination was at play here. The lawsuit argues this incident violates Michigan’s 1976 civil rights act by “using facial recognition technology practices proven to misidentify Black citizens at a higher rate than others.” Researchers not associated with this case have also cautioned against using this new technology.
A 2019 US government study found that people of color are more likely to be misidentified by facial recognition technology as compared to white people. The National Institute of Standards and Technology further stated that Native American, Black, and Asian people had the highest percentages of misidentifications. Because of these findings, cities such as San Francisco, California, and Somerville, Massachusetts, have banned the use of the technology.
Ivan Land, Woodruff’s lawyer, is not calling for a ban. Instead he believes facial recognition can be a useful tool “if you use it the right way.” It has to be used in conjunction with good, old-fashioned investigation he stated on CNN Tonight.
