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U.S.: Detroit Woman Held While 8 Months Pregnant After False Facial Recognition Files Lawsuit

According to NBC News, a Detroit woman has filed a lawsuit against the city and a police detective alleging that face recognition was used to wrongly arrest her while she was eight months pregnant.

Porcha Woodruff, the plaintiff, was arrested at her residence on February 16 and charged with robbery and carjacking. The 32-year-old said she initially thought the officers who arrived at her home with a warrant for her arrest were kidding.

“Ms. Woodruff later discovered that she was implicated as a suspect through a photo lineup shown to the victim of the robbery and carjacking, following an unreliable facial recognition match,” court documents stated.

According to the victim, he was robbed and carjacked on January 29 after having s** with a woman he met. The victim also stated that he and the woman went to a petrol station prior to the event, and that she “interacted with several individuals” while there.

After speaking with the woman at the station, an armed man carjacked and robbed her after they proceeded to a different place. The victim also told authorities that two days after the event, the woman misplaced his phone at a gas station.

LaShauntia Oliver was the detective who worked on the case. According to the lawsuit, Oliver employed face recognition technology to identify Woodruff as a suspect after discovering the victim’s phone had been left at the gas station.

The lawsuit claims that “Detective Oliver stated in detail in her report what she observed in the video footage, and there was no mention of the female suspect being pregnant,” and that “the detective did not show a male suspect Woodruff’s photo after he was arrested while driving the victim’s car,” according to NBC News.

When presented a lineup of probable suspects following the assault, the victim recognized Woodruff as the woman in his company. Oliver is also reported to have used a photo of Woodruff from 2015 for the lineup, despite the fact that her current driver’s license was accessible.

According to the lawsuit, on the day the plaintiff was arrested, she and her fiancé told the officers to check to see if the female suspect was pregnant. According to the lawsuit, they did not do so. Woodruff was eventually arrested on robbery and carjacking charges and released on $100,000 bond. She also required medical assistance after experiencing a low heart rate due to dehydration. The plaintiff was told that the contractions she experienced after the incident were caused by the stress of the litigation.

On March 6, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office dismissed the case against Woodruff, alleging “insufficient evidence.” The agency, however, stated that the warrant used to arrest Woodruff was “appropriate based on the facts,” and that the case was withdrawn when the victim did not appear at a preliminary hearing, according to NBC News.

According to a 2019 study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, while facial recognition technology works relatively well on White men, it provides less accurate results for other demographics, which experts attribute to a lack of diversity in the images used to develop the databases.

“We are taking this matter very seriously, but we cannot comment further at this time due to the need for additional investigation,” Detroit Police Chief James E. White said in response to the lawsuit. “We will provide further information once additional facts are obtained and we have a better understanding of the circumstances.”

Written by PH

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