Although artificial intelligence technologies have become usable even on our smartphones with productive tools and have been put at the disposal of billions of people, they have actually had a large share in our lives for years. In many sectors, these technologies are used for security, prediction, operation and facilitation.
Of course, some uses can cause controversy from time to time; Like the US police forces using these systems for facial recognition. We’ve seen citizens wrongfully accused of this technology before. A new one has recently joined them.
What happened with wrongful detention:
Porcha Woodruff, a 32-year-old black woman who has two children and is 8 months pregnant with her third child, was getting ready to send her children to school, when the police knocked on her door. The team took Woodruff from his home on charges of car theft.
“Are you kidding?” Woodruff asked during this encounter. He tried to explain that he wasn’t even in a position to commit a crime by asking the question and pointing to his stomach, but it didn’t work. He was taken to the Detroit Detention Center, where he was held for 11 hours.
During his detention, his phone was taken from him to be searched, and he was interrogated for a crime he did not commit. Moreover, he suffered from back pain and convulsions in the cell he was detained in. On top of that, a $100,000 bail was provided for his release.
Of course, the work did not end here. Released from custody, Woodruff went straight to the hospital. Here he was diagnosed with thirst and was given intravenous fluids.
The next day, he went to the police department and took his phone, later appearing in court twice over Zoom. But the judge dropped the case on the grounds of insufficient evidence.
But all this happened just last February, due to a malfunctioning facial recognition system.
Artificial intelligence led to the wrong person’s detention/arrest for the sixth time: They all have one thing in common!
Woodruff became the sixth person and first woman known to have been detained in the United States for artificial intelligence. The only thing these six people had in common was that they were black. The case was the third case for the Detroit Police Department.
City police use a facial recognition system provided by DataWorks Plus.
Woodruff sued the city of Detroit this week:
Woodruff filed a lawsuit against the city of Detroit on Tuesday. With the opening of the case, a statement came from the Detroit police. Chief James E. White told The New York Times that they took the situation seriously:
Incorrect working logic of the face recognition system:
- The mismatched photograph (left) and present (right) of Woodruff.
The reason why Woodruff’s face was matched with the real criminal was the application that could open up in the system developed for artificial intelligence. The system was comparing people with people with previous criminal activities. The final approval of the matches coming from the system was given by a human.
The analyst investigating the incident that led to Woodruff’s detention also found the match correct and sent Woodruff’s name to the detective. Woodruff’s face in this system was because he was arrested in 2015 for driving without a license.
But the system is not the only crime:
In addition to the analyst who found the match correct, the victim of the car theft saw 6 people, including Woodruff, with his own eyes, pointing to Woodruff as the culprit. This was the last factor that led to the woman’s detention.
Detroit police were on the agenda again in 2020:
There was a similar incident not only in Detroit but elsewhere in the USA:
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