A 52-year-old Florida man, Robert Dillon, has filed a lawsuit against several law enforcement agencies after being wrongfully arrested and prosecuted due to an artificial intelligence facial recognition error. The legal action was brought on Dillon's behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union after an algorithm generated a 93 per cent probability match linking him to security camera footage of a man attempting to lure a child in Jacksonville Beach. However, Dillon lived in Fort Myers—more than 300 miles away—and had never visited the town, leading to the charges from the August 2024 incident being dropped last year. The lawsuit targets the Jacksonville Beach police department, the Jacksonville sheriff’s office, and Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, whose agency maintains and leases the Faces (Face Analysis Comparison and Examination) system involved in the case.

Background: Facial Recognition in Policing

← Back to the news feed