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Innocent woman jailed after being misidentified using AI facial recognition

grandforksherald.com

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Re: Innocent woman jailed after being misidentified using AI facial recognition

#61

Post by blagie »

Jtsummers wrote: post #26
Blackthorn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all the lovely qualified immunity doctrine? That's wishful thinking.

That may protect them personally, but not the city and the department itself from being sued.

Nope.

https://abovethelaw.com/2016/02/criminally-yours-indicting-a...

You can be arrested, indicted, and held in jail on pretrial, and there is literally no recourse. There are many other ways jail can happen without due process. Where I live:

* Civil contempt. Absolutely immunity. No due process. Record is about 16 years. Having a bad day? Judge can toss you in jail.

* "Dangerous." Half a year. No due process. He-said she-said.

* "Insane." Psychiatric hold. Three days. Due process on paper, not in practice. Police in my town can and do use this if they don't like you.

Absolutely no recourse. You come out with a gap in income, employment, and, if you missed rent/mortgage, no home. Landlords will simply throw your stuff away too.

You're also basically damned if things do move forward, since from jail, you have no access to evidence, to internet (for legal research), and no reasonable way to recruit a lawyer (and, for most people, pay for one).

Can happen to anyone. Less common if you're rich and can afford a good lawyer, but far from uncommon.

Re: Innocent woman jailed after being misidentified using AI facial recognition

#62

Post by theLiminator »

vkou wrote: post #46
theLiminator wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off of taxpayer money sadly. Imo we really need a fix for this. When cops are grossly negligent the money should come out of their aggregate pension fund (or at least partially).

There is a fix to it. Elect people who will hold them accountable. As long as you keep electing clowns that let the police do whatever they want, the police will... Do whatever they want.

Yeah, of course they need to held accountable, and we need to vote in people who will do so. What I'm suggesting is an alignment of incentives that will ensure that police will try to do their best to not be negligent.

Of course there's a balance that has to be struck so that police are empowered enough to act. So perhaps something like settlements against the police being 30% borne by the police pension fund and 70% by taxpayers is sufficient. I think this will also make police very enthusiastic about bodycams and holding each other accountable.

Re: Innocent woman jailed after being misidentified using AI facial recognition

#63

Post by idle_zealot »

anigbrowl wrote: post #18

It is an AI error, but also an error on the part of the cops, the prosecutors, the judge, and the county sheriff (who is responsible for the jail inmates). I hope everyone involved in this travesty is sued into oblivion and unable to hide behind their immunity defenses. Facial recognition should never be the sole basis for a warrant.

> It is an AI error, but also an error on the part of the cops, the prosecutors, the judge, and the county sheriff

Yes, it's critical to remember that multiple parties can be at fault. In a case like this, it is true that

a) law enforcement misused a tool and demonstrated extreme negligence

b) the judiciary didn't catch this, which suggests systemic negligence there too when it comes to their oversight responsibilities

c) the company selling/providing this AI tool should have known it was likely to be misused and is responsible for damages caused by such predictable usage

We cannot have a just world until our laws and norms result in loss of jobs and legitimacy as punishment for this sort of normalized failure, from all three parties. Immunity is a failed experiment.

Re: Innocent woman jailed after being misidentified using AI facial recognition

#64

Post by rectang »

vkou wrote: post #46
theLiminator wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off of taxpayer money sadly. Imo we really need a fix for this. When cops are grossly negligent the money should come out of their aggregate pension fund (or at least partially).

There is a fix to it. Elect people who will hold them accountable. As long as you keep electing clowns that let the police do whatever they want, the police will... Do whatever they want.

“Tough on crime” -> lenient on police -> innocent grandmas in jail.

Re: Innocent woman jailed after being misidentified using AI facial recognition

#66

Post by themafia »

whack wrote: post #51

> According to the court documents, the Fargo detective working the case then looked at Lipps' social media accounts and Tennessee driver's license photo. In his charging document, the detective wrote that Lipps appeared to be the suspect based on facial features, body type and hairstyle and color. > Once they were in hand, Fargo police met with him and Lipps at the Cass County jail on Dec. 19. She had already been i…

> How is this the fault of AI?

It could be the fault of the company that's selling this service. They often make wildly inaccurate claims about the utility and accuracy of their systems. [0]

> There's a reason why we don't let AI autonomously jail people.

Yes we do. [1]

> and a criminal justice system that thinks it is okay to jail people for 5 months before even starting to assess their guilt.

Her guilt was assessed. That's why she had no bail. It assessed it incorrectly, but the error is more complicated than your reaction implies.

[0]: https://thisisreno.com/2026/03/lawsuit-reno-police-ai-polici...

[1]: https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2020/investigations/p...

Re: Innocent woman jailed after being misidentified using AI facial recognition

#67

Post by waterhouse »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #59
holman wrote: post #47

Me: Whoa, cool, my hometown is on atop Hacker News! Also me, reading further: Uh-oh. The chief of police also resigned today; wouldn't be shocked if this was part of the reasoning.

> chief of police also resigned today Source?

Googling "fargo police chief resigns": https://www.inforum.com/news/fargo/zibolski-announces-his-re... among other results.

That said, it's portrayed as a retirement, and doesn't seem to give any hints that it's connected.

Re: Innocent woman jailed after being misidentified using AI facial recognition

#68

Post by tony_cannistra »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #32
tony_cannistra wrote: post #7

Completely infuriating, but more of a commentary on the sad state of incompetent power-hungry law enforcement with tools they don't know how to use than the tools themselves. Though, the question remains: are the tools built in such a way as to deceive the user into a false sense of trust or certainty? _Some_ of the blame lies on the UX here. It must.

> are the tools built in such a way as to deceive the user into a false sense of trust or certainty? _Some_ of the blame lies on the UX here. It must. Are AI code assist tools built in such a way as to deceive the user into a false sense of trust or certainty? Very much so (even if that isn't a primary objective). Does any part of the blame lie on the UX if a dev submits a bad change? No, none. You are ultimately, so…

I agree with all that. Maybe the word isn't "blame," then. Surely there must be some code, perhaps moral or ethical, but ideally more rigorously enforcible, which ought to prevent the development of intentionally deceiving tools. Sure you could say this about all software, but that which can cause actual physical harm ought to be held to a higher standard.

Re: Innocent woman jailed after being misidentified using AI facial recognition

#69

Post by RobRivera »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #59
holman wrote: post #47

Me: Whoa, cool, my hometown is on atop Hacker News! Also me, reading further: Uh-oh. The chief of police also resigned today; wouldn't be shocked if this was part of the reasoning.

> chief of police also resigned today Source?

[dead]

Re: Innocent woman jailed after being misidentified using AI facial recognition

#70

Post by PTOB »

holman wrote: post #47

Me: Whoa, cool, my hometown is on atop Hacker News! Also me, reading further: Uh-oh. The chief of police also resigned today; wouldn't be shocked if this was part of the reasoning.

I am from a town that gets national news coverage only for Shenanigans like this.
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