Man sues Florida cops over arrest spurred by "93% match" in facial recognition
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/06/man-jailed-due-to-faulty-face-recognition-says-florida-cops-ignored-other-evidence/?amp%3Butm_content=%3Cmedia_url%3E&%3Butm_medium=social&%3Butm_source=twitter
480 points · 42 comments · view on lemmy.world
42 Comments
N0t_5ure@lemmy.world · 120 pts · 70d
So, a shit cop who has no business having a badge and a gun does a shit job. Who'd have figured? In my opinion, all settlements of claims against improper policing should come from police retirement funds, not public funds. Put the liability on those capable of making the changes necessary to correct the situation.
orclev@lemmy.world · 45 pts · 70d
I've seen it proposed that cops should have to start carrying essentially malpractice insurance that they pay for out of their own pocket and that would cover payouts in the event that they get sued. This would have the added advantage that all those "bad apples" that somehow always seem to end up transferred to new precincts instead of fired and banned for life wouldn't be able to get anyone to insure them effectively banning them.
SarahFromOz@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 69d
Good idea.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 69d
While that's the hope, if an insurance agent refused to cover a cop (even if for good reason) that agent would spend the next six months to a year having to buy new headlights every time they drive.
Mirshe@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 69d
If an insurance company refused to carry a cop, they'd be sued out of existence by every police union and booster org in the nation.
kbobabob@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 69d
That's stalking and illegal. I also don't think I've ever known the full name of any insurance rep but i didn't use local ones.
Nollij@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 69d
The agent is a local, usually small business, and acts as a buyer on your behalf. They guide you on coverage to get, and the options available to you.
Those quotes come from the major insurance companies you always see advertised. They are the ones underwriting your coverage. These are almost invariably faceless corporations, with decisions by faceless computers.
The local agent can't do anything but recommend coverage elsewhere.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 69d
Legalities never stopped them before.
ToiletFlushShowerScream@piefed.world · 25 pts · 70d
I very much agree. A more just solution would see settlements from cases such as this should come from the police unions funds, or as you suggested - not from taxpayers.
artyom@piefed.social · 3 pts · 70d
Unfortunately they're probably scraping the bottom of the barrel for people willing to do such a terrible job.
SarahFromOz@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 69d
It seems like a lot of cops are into domestic violence. And these are the people who are trusted to keep us safe.
brem@lemmy.world · 34 pts · 70d
Well hell, I look 93% identical to Frank Zappa.
If that's all it takes to be somebody else, I might be movin' to Montana soon...
x00z@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 70d
Aren't all humans 99.9% similar already?
If 93% is enough you could just take any ape at that point.
PattyMcB@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 70d
That's DNA, not facial structure
x00z@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 70d
Yes that was the joke
PattyMcB@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 70d
That was a joke?
fartographer@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 70d
Sick burn
x00z@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 70d
Yes. You take something out of context to make it look stupid. A 93% DNA match is extremely stupid, just like a 93% AI facial match.
fartographer@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 70d
TIL that I'm a joke
x00z@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 70d
No. I fully support fartographers and consider them a staple of our society.
fartographer@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 70d
TIL I'm also a staple. (Oh yes, this joke has nowhere to go but down, and I'm fully buckled in)
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 70d
IIRC there are an estimated roughly 1 Billion different allele combinations that deal with appearance so hypothetically you should have 6-8 doppelgängers somewhere in the world.
x00z@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 70d
I definitely saw a video about this.
AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 70d
There’s no objective measure for quantifying similarity. We can measure relative similarity, though—but that scale will vary depending on what it’s relative to.
We could measure genetic similarity relative to a typical unrelated person, or relative to the nearest non-human animal, or relative to the most distantly-related living organism, or relative to random noise. (And you can do the same for facial similarity.)
x00z@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 70d
Yeah I wonder what a 0% match looks like.
AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 70d
Mark Zuckerberg, probably.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 69d
I was going to show a photo of my twin but that example works too
its_prolly_fine@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 70d
Humans do have really low genetic diversity compared to most other organisms. Not as bad cheetahs though!
RaoulDook@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 70d
This should be the response in every incidence of false arrest (a lawsuit), especially when involving these dystopian Big Brother surveillance systems.
bridgeburner@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 69d
won't take long anymore for the US to be a less free country than China lol
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 70d
If the cops are unhappy I will make them an “AI” that only spits out 100% matches.
It may never spit out any results though. Or maybe it’ll always say 100
snooggums@piefed.world · 7 pts · 70d
All the 100% matches are of cops.
tabular@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 70d
Good luck to him
a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 70d
Pro: Now he can jerk off anywhere. Anyone catches him he can be like "it's the AI again" and the judge have to let him off.
Lucky bastard getting of and letting off repeatedly while the rest of us over here aren't jerking it.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 69d
Try jorgling it. The double twist at the end really something somethings
Tetsuo@jlai.lu · -4 pts · 70d
I think this cop can only be condemned if it can be proven that he was knowingly doing something illegal ?
So essentially, he will just say he trusted the recognition software to be accurate and that he isn't liable for that.
As long as that kind of immunity is there it's incredibly difficult to sanction cops for stuff like that.
Grimy@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 70d
The suspect just doesn't look like him. I get what you mean but I think it's expected of the cop to at least review whatever it gives him. He didn't even give it a glance.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 69d
Not glancing at it is what I expect of cops, having grown up surrounded by them
Tetsuo@jlai.lu · 2 pts · 70d
My point is that it's not about competency of the cop it's about his intent. Qualified immunity can be brought down if and only if you can prove ill intent which is a very high bar to pass.
I'm no lawyer or prosecutor though so that's just my understanding of the qualified immunity in the US. It's an extremely strong shield for even the most incompetent cop that has ever existed.
mracton@piefed.social · 7 pts · 70d
I love this world where we can be arrested and jailed and have our lives ruined because cops can’t be arsed to verify whether somebody was anywhere else at the time because a machine said ”It’s him…I guess.”
ayyy@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 70d
What’s with the downvote barrage lemmings? Tetsuo didn’t endorse the situation, they just stated reality.
Some people really will jump off a bridge just because the person in front of them did, huh.
Tetsuo@jlai.lu · 4 pts · 70d
Don't shoot the messenger ;p
I indeed don't endorse how qualified immunity works and I commiserate with victims of police abuse that ends up losing their case because of it. It's not my fault if the system favors so heavily the cops :/