Angela Lipps, a 50-year-old grandmother from Tennessee, spent more than five months in jail after an artificial intelligence facial recognition system wrongly flagged her as a bank fraud suspect in Fargo, North Dakota. On 14 July 2025, U.S. Marshals arrested Lipps at gunpoint in Tennessee, where she was held without bail as a fugitive from justice despite having never visited North Dakota. After her extradition to Fargo three and a half months later, her court-appointed lawyer obtained bank records proving she was at home in Tennessee during every fraud incident. Following a brief meeting with a detective on 19 December, the case against her collapsed and she was released on Christmas Eve. The facial recognition technology involved in such systems analyses facial geometry, including the distance between the eyes and the shape of the jawline, to convert images into numerical data known as faceprints.

Background: Facial Recognition in Policing

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