In a first-of-its-kind case, a facial recognition system falsely accused a man from Michigan of theft he didn't commit.
Robert Julian-Borchak Williams was in his office at an automotive supply company when he got a call from the Detroit Police Department telling him to come to the station to be arrested. He thought at first that it was a prank, The New York Times reported.
An hour later, when he pulled into his driveway in a quiet subdivision in Farmington Hills, Michigan, a police car pulled up behind, blocking him in. Two officers got out and handcuffed Williams on his front lawn, in front of his wife and two young daughters, who were distraught.
The police wouldn't say why he was being arrested, only showing him a piece of paper with his photo and the words "felony warrant" and "larceny." His wife, Melissa, asked where he was being taken. "Google it," she recalls an officer replying.
The police drove Williams to a detention center. He had his mug shot, fingerprints and DNA taken, and was held overnight. Around noon the next day, two detectives took him to an interrogation room and placed three pieces of paper on the table, face down.
"When's the last time you went to a Shinola store?" one of the detectives asked, in Williams's recollection. Shinola is an upscale boutique that sells watches, bicycles and leather goods in the trendy Midtown neighborhood of Detroit.
Williams said he and his wife had checked it out when the store first opened in 2014. The detective showed him a still image from a surveillance video, showing a man standing in front of a watch display. Five timepieces, worth $3,800, were shoplifted.
"No, this is not me. You think all black men look alike?" Williams said. This case may be the first known account of an American being wrongfully arrested based on a flawed match from a facial recognition algorithm, according to experts on technology and the law.
