Pregnant US Woman, Arrested After False Facial Recognition Match, Sues Police

A woman in the US was falsely arrested and because of facial recognition technology while she was eight months pregnant, according to New York Times (NYT). Porcha Woodruff was getting her two daughter ready for school on February 16 last year when the police arrived at her home and presented her with an arrest warrant alleging carjacking and robbery. The 32-year-old initially thought the police officers were joking and even gestured at her stomach but she was arrested, the outlet said in its report.

Ms Woodruff had to leave her children with her fiance and she was taken to the Detroit Detention Centre. She told NYT that she was kept there for 11 hours, questioned about a crime she had no clue about and had her iPhone confiscated.

"I was having contractions in the holding cell. My back was sending me sharp pains. I was having spasms. I think I was probably having a panic attack," said Ms. Woodruff, a licensed aesthetician and nursing school student. "I was hurting, sitting on those concrete benches," Ms Woodruff told NYT.

After being charged with the two crimes, she was released that evening on a $100,000 personal bond. A month later, the case against her was dismissed.

She has now filed a lawsuit against Detroit Police for wrongful arrest.

"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," according to the court documents cited by NBC News.

The robbery victim told the police that he met a woman on January 29 last year and had sexual intercourse with her. He then went to a gas station where he saw the woman interacting with other individuals, as per the lawsuit.

They then left for another place, where the victim was carjacked at gunpoint by a man whom the woman had interacted with.

The man further said that his phone was returned to the gas station two days later. When Detective LaShauntia Oliver, who has been named in the lawsuit, got to know that the phone has been returned, she ran facial technology, which identified the woman as Ms Woodruff, the lawsuit alleges.

Detroit Police Chief James E White said he reviewed the allegations in the lawsuit, which he said are "very concerning."

"We are taking this matter very seriously, but we cannot comment further at this time due to the need for additional investigation. We will provide further information once additional facts are obtained and we have a better understanding of the circumstances," he said.

Ms Woodruff is the sixth person who is claimed to have been falsely accused of a crime as a result of facial recognition technology, according to NYT. All six of them have been black.

She, however, is the first woman to report it happening to her.

Detroit Police department has found itself in such a scenario for the third time. On an average, it runs 125 facial recognition searches a year, almost entirely on black men, the outlet further said.