The settlement was reached after Roger Williams, a Black man who was wrongly arrested based on facial recognition technology, sued the police department. Williams, who was represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Civil Rights Litigation Initiative at the University of Michigan Law School, will also receive $300,000 as part of the settlement. The police department described the new policy as a "national best practice and model for other agencies using this technology."
Key takeaways:
- The Detroit Police Department has agreed to new policies limiting the use of facial recognition technology as part of a legal settlement.
- The policies prohibit arrests based solely on facial recognition search results and require additional evidence for photo lineups. They also mandate police training on the risks of facial recognition tech and an audit of all cases since 2017 where it was used to obtain an arrest warrant.
- The settlement was reached after a lawsuit by Roger Williams, a Black man who was wrongly arrested based on facial recognition identification. The police department is paying Williams $300,000 as part of the settlement.
- The American Civil Liberties Union described the new policies as the nation’s strongest constraints on law enforcement’s use of facial recognition technology, which has been found to misidentify women and people of color more frequently.