A Florida man who was arrested in 2023 on suspicion of attempting to lure a child away from a Jacksonville Beach McDonald’s says he was wrongly identified through facial recognition software, according to CBS News. Richard Dillon, who says he was not at the scene, has now become the plaintiff in a new lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against the Jacksonville Beach Police Department and others over the alleged misuse of the AI-powered technology.
According to the ACLU’s complaint, police relied on a facial recognition system to identify Dillon as a suspect without conducting a sufficient independent investigation. “Police let an error-prone artificial intelligence system stand in for an investigation,” the ACLU argues in its complaint. The case adds to a growing list of publicly known instances, more than a dozen, according to the ACLU, in which facial recognition technology has allegedly led to a wrongful arrest.
