Porcha Woodruff, an African American woman who was eight months pregnant at the time, is the sixth individual to come forward and report being falsely accused of a crime because of the controversial technology utilised by law enforcement.

Woodruff was accused of robbery and carjacking.

“Are you kidding?” Woodruff claims to have said to the officers, gesturing to her stomach to highlight how nonsensical the allegation was while being eight months pregnant.

The pattern of wrongful arrests based on faulty facial recognition has raised serious concerns, particularly as all six victims known by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have been African Americans. However, Woodruff’s case is notable as she is the first woman to report such an incident happening to her.

This latest incident marks the third known allegation of a wrongful arrest in the past three years attributed to the Detroit Police Department specifically and its reliance on inaccurate facial recognition matches.

Robert Williams, represented by the ACLU of Michigan and the University of Michigan Law School’s Civil Rights Litigation Initiative (CRLI), has an ongoing lawsuit against the DPD for his wrongful arrest in January 2020 due to the same technology.

Phil Mayor, Senior Staff Attorney at ACLU of Michigan, commented: “It’s deeply concerning that the Detroit Police Department knows the devastating consequences of using flawed facial recognition technology as the basis for someone’s arrest and continues to rely on it anyway.

“As Ms Woodruff’s horrifying experience illustrates, the Department’s use of this technology must end.”

The use of facial recognition technology in law enforcement has been a contentious issue, with concerns raised about its accuracy, racial bias, and potential violations of privacy and civil liberties.

Studies have shown that these systems are more prone to errors when identifying individuals with darker skin tones, leading to a disproportionate impact on marginalised communities.

Critics argue that relying on facial recognition as the sole basis for an arrest poses significant risks and can lead to severe consequences for innocent individuals, as seen in the case of Woodruff.

Calls for transparency and accountability have escalated, with civil rights organisations urging the Detroit Police Department to halt its use of facial recognition until the technology is thoroughly vetted and proven to be unbiased and accurate.

“The DPD continues to hide its abuses of this technology, forcing people whose rights have been violated to expose its wrongdoing case by case,” added Mayor.

“DPD should not be permitted to avoid transparency and hide its own misconduct from public view at the same time it continues to subject Detroiters to dragnet surveillance.” 

As the case unfolds, the public remains watchful of how the Detroit Police Department will respond to the mounting pressure to address concerns about the misuse of facial recognition technology and its impact on the rights and lives of innocent individuals.

(Image Credit: Oleg Gamulinskii from Pixabay)

See also: UK will host global AI summit to address potential risks

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The controversial facial recognition firm caused a stir due to scraping billions of images of people across the web without their consent. As a result, the company has faced the ire of regulators around the world and numerous court cases.

One court case filed against Clearview AI was by the ACLU in 2020, claiming that it violated the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). That act covers Illinois and requires companies operating in the state to obtain explicit consent from individuals to collect their biometric data.

“Fourteen years ago, the ACLU of Illinois led the effort to enact BIPA – a groundbreaking statute to deal with the growing use of sensitive biometric information without any notice and without meaningful consent,” explained Rebecca Glenberg, staff attorney for the ACLU of Illinois.

“BIPA was intended to curb exactly the kind of broad-based surveillance that Clearview’s app enables.”

The case is ongoing but the two sides have reached a draft settlement. As part of the proposal, Clearview AI has agreed to restrict sales of its faceprint database to businesses and other private entities across the country.

“By requiring Clearview to comply with Illinois’ pathbreaking biometric privacy law not just in the state, but across the country, this settlement demonstrates that strong privacy laws can provide real protections against abuse,” said Nathan Freed Wessler, a deputy director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.

“Clearview can no longer treat people’s unique biometric identifiers as an unrestricted source of profit. Other companies would be wise to take note, and other states should follow Illinois’ lead in enacting strong biometric privacy laws.” 

The most protections will be offered to residents in Illinois. Clearview AI will be banned from sharing access to its database to any private company in the state in addition to any local public entity for five years.

Furthermore, Clearview AI plans to filter out images from Illinois. This may not catch all images so residents will be able to upload their image and Clearview will block its software from finding matches for their face. Clearview AI will spend $50,000 on adverts in online ads to raise awareness for this feature.

“This settlement is a big win for the most vulnerable people in Illinois,” commented Linda Xóchitl Tortolero, president and CEO of Mujeres Latinas en Acción, a Chicago-based non-profit.

“Much of our work centres on protecting privacy and ensuring the safety of survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. Before this agreement, Clearview ignored the fact that biometric information can be misused to create dangerous situations and threats to their lives. Today that’s no longer the case.” 

The protections offered to American citizens outside Illinois aren’t quite as stringent.

Clearview AI is still able to sell access to its huge database to public entities, including law enforcement. In the wake of the US Capitol raid, the company boasted that police use of its facial recognition system increased 26 percent.

However, the company would be banned from selling access to its complete database to private companies. Clearview AI could still sell its software, but any purchaser would need to source their own database to train it.

“There is a battle being fought in courtrooms and statehouses across the country about who is going to control biometrics—Big Tech or the people being tracked by them—and this represents one of the biggest victories for consumers to date,” said J. Eli Wade-Scott from Edelson PC.

In November 2021, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) imposed a potential fine of just over £17 million to Clearview AI and ordered the company to destroy the personal data it holds on British citizens and cease further processing.

Earlier that month, the OAIC reached the same conclusion as the ICO and ordered Clearview AI to destroy the biometric data it collected on Australians and cease further collection.

The full draft settlement between Clearview AI and the ACLU can be found here.

(Photo by Maksim Chernishev on Unsplash)

Related: Ukraine harnesses Clearview AI to uncover assailants and identify the fallen

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