[HN Gopher] Police used AI facial recognition to wrongly arrest ...
___________________________________________________________________
Police used AI facial recognition to wrongly arrest TN woman for
crimes in ND
Author : ourmandave
Score : 314 points
Date : 2026-03-29 14:20 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| AI is a liability issue waiting to happen. And this is just
| another example.
| garyfirestorm wrote:
| It's a tool. Used incorrectly will lead to errors. Just like a
| hammer, used incorrectly could hit the users finger.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| There is enormous variability in how hard a tool is to use
| correctly, how likely it is to go wrong, and how severe the
| consequences are. AI has a wide range on all those variables
| because its use cases vary so widely compared to a hammer.
|
| The use case here is police facial recognition. Not hitting
| nails. The parent wasn't saying "AI is a liability" with no
| context.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| When somebody uses a tool to hurt somebody, they need to be
| held accountable. If I smack you with a hammer, that needs
| to be prosecuted. Using AI is no different.
|
| The problem here is incidental to the tool; it was done by
| the cops and therefore nobody will be held accountable.
| tovej wrote:
| Systems are also a tool. Whoever institutes and helps
| build the system that systematically results in harm is
| also responsible.
|
| That would be the vendors, the system planners, and the
| institutions that greenlit this. It would also include
| the larger financial tech circle that is trying to drive
| large scale AI adoption. Like Peter Thiel, who sees
| technology as an "alternative to politics". I.e. a way to
| circumvent democracy [1]
|
| [1] https://stavroulapabst.substack.com/p/techxgeopolitic
| s-18-te...
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Nonsense. The manufacturer, distributor, and vendor of a
| hammer are not liable for its misuse. We already
| litigated and then legislated this regarding guns in the
| US.
|
| As much as I detest Clearview and Thiel the fault for
| this incident falls squarely on the justice system.
| suzzer99 wrote:
| Dynamite is a tool. But we don't hand it out to anyone who
| wants to play with it.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| We used to until quite recently. Anybody could buy dynamite
| at the hardware store. We had to end this because of
| criminals using it to hurt people.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| Look for AI to follow a similar trajectory over time.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Yes, regulation is inevitable.
| jfengel wrote:
| Regulation is impossible. The AI barons literally control
| the federal government, so not even state regulations get
| tried.
| GaryBluto wrote:
| Impossible at this point. You cannot download dynamite.
| jfengel wrote:
| Except this time the criminals are police.
| AngryData wrote:
| They are far more often than anyone wants to admit.
| That's how we got 25% of the world's prison population.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| AFAIK the actual cause for our high incarceration rate is
| that we have longer sentences. The conviction rate, for
| example, as compared to the UK is similar.
| suzzer99 wrote:
| I admit I was surprised to see you could buy dynamite in
| a hardware store until 1970.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| AI feels closer to a firearm than a hammer when accessing law
| enforcement's ability to quickly do massive, unrecoverable
| harm.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| _Used incorrectly will lead to errors._
|
| Only one small little problem --- there is no way to tell if
| you are using it "correctly".
|
| The only way to be sure is to not use it.
|
| Using it basically boils down to, "Do you feel lucky?".
|
| The Fargo police didn't get lucky in this case. And now the
| liability kicks in.
| jfengel wrote:
| Now the "qualified" immunity kicks in.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| We will find out. But relying on AI is likely to cost the
| city of Fargo in one way or another. They say they have
| already stopped using AI and returned to good old
| fashioned human investigation.
|
| https://www.lawlegalhub.com/how-much-is-a-wrongful-
| arrest-la...
| nkrisc wrote:
| Some basic investigatory police work (the kind they did
| before AI) would have revealed the mistake before an
| innocent woman's life was destroyed.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| Yes. But doing the investigation negates much of the
| incentive for using AI.
|
| Look for similar to play out elsewhere --- using
| unreliable tools for decision making is not a good,
| responsible business plan. And lawyers are just waiting
| to press the point.
| bornfreddy wrote:
| AI can provide leads. Someone still needs to verify them
| and decide.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| Generating and verifying bad leads costs money. Not
| verifying bad leads can cost much more.
|
| At some point, you have to decide if wasting good money
| on bad intel makes sense.
| nkrisc wrote:
| In this case it sounds as though AI could have been used
| to generate preliminary leads. When someone calls a tip
| line with information, police don't just take their word
| for it, they investigate it. They know that tips they
| receive may be incorrect. They should have done the exact
| same here, but they didn't.
|
| I'm very opposed to AI in general, but this one is
| clearly human failure.
|
| The noteworthy AI angle is the undeserved credence police
| gave to AI information. But that is ultimately their
| failure; they should be investigating all information
| they receive.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| _...but this one is clearly human failure._
|
| Absolutely.
|
| The failure starts with tool vendors who market these
| statistical/probabilistic pattern searchers as
| "intelligent". The Fargo police failed to fully evaluate
| these marketing claims before applying them to their
| work.
|
| So in the same way that the failure rolled down hill,
| liability needs to roll back up.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| The article says that the Fargo police claimed to have
| done "additional investigative steps independent of AI".
| (Perhaps they're lying, or did a poor job because they
| thought the extra steps were a formality.)
| zephen wrote:
| Look, I'm generally considered AI's most vociferous
| detractor.
|
| But...
|
| > there is no way to tell if you are using it "correctly".
|
| This simply isn't true, at least in cases like this.
|
| I know common sense isn't really all that common, but why
| would you give more credence to an untested tool than an
| untested crack-addled human informant?
|
| The entire point of the informant, or the AI in this
| instance, is to generate _leads._ Which subsequently need
| to be checked.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| There is no "correct" way to use AI in order to avoid bad
| results. The only prudent approach is to assume all
| results are bad until proven otherwise.
|
| But this approach negates much of the incentive to pay
| for questionable results.
| zephen wrote:
| > The only prudent approach is to assume all results are
| bad until proven otherwise.
|
| As is true with results from people.
|
| > But this approach negates much of the incentive to pay
| for questionable results.
|
| I'm not sure that follows. Even the crack-addled human
| informant has always been paid for questionable results.
| tgv wrote:
| This tool, however, is specifically built for mass
| surveillance. It serves no other purpose. The tool is broken,
| and everybody knows it. The tool makers are at least as
| guilty as those who use it.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| The tool, like Google search, is likely biased towards
| returning results regardless of confidence.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| The tool is unethical, not broken. And unfortunately
| remains legal for the time being. To that end it's a social
| or political problem that can be fixed.
| MattDaEskimo wrote:
| What kind of outcome results from misuse? Clearly a hammer's
| misuse has very little in common with a global, hivemind
| network used in high-stake campaigns.
|
| Now, if I misused a hammer and it hurt everyone's thumb in my
| country, then maybe what you said would have some merit.
|
| Otherwise, I'd say it's an extremely lazy argument
| hrimfaxi wrote:
| Unlike hammers people preface things with "claude says", etc.
| I never see that kind of distancing with tools that aren't
| AI.
| gtowey wrote:
| It's the opposite, it's absolution from liability. "The AI did
| it" is the ultimate excuse to avoid accepting responsibility
| and consequences.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| Courts are already refusing to accept this excuse.
|
| https://pub.towardsai.net/the-air-gapped-chronicles-the-
| cour...
| gtowey wrote:
| Good to know it's not a fait accompli yet, but I wont be
| surprised to see corporations pushing for this hard.
| Hizonner wrote:
| ... which is why the institutions that assign responsibility
| and consequences need to make it really clear that excuse
| won't fly. With illustrative examples.
| mitchbob wrote:
| Earlier discussion (405 comments):
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47356968
| oopsiremembered wrote:
| Money quote from someone quoted in the article:
|
| "[I]t's not just a technology problem, it's a technology and
| people problem."
|
| I can't. I just can't.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I've been hearing "it's not just... it's a" touted as an AI
| sign recently, personally I think it's an AI sign because it's
| a human thinking shortcut sign, and AI copies it, but it would
| be funny if AI wrote the article and then hallucinated this
| specific money quote.
| oopsiremembered wrote:
| I doubt this happened here, but FWIW, AI does have a habit of
| "cleaning up" (read: hallucinating) interview transcript
| quotes if you ask it to go through a transcript and pull
| quotes. You have to prompt AI very specifically to get it to
| not "clean up" the quotes when you ask it to do that task.
| b112 wrote:
| And why not?
|
| If you look at examples of people quoting on the internet,
| lots are out of context, paraphrased, or made up.
|
| AI is just mimicking what it has seen.
| firefoxd wrote:
| Without even looking at the AI part, I have a single question:
| Did anybody investigate? That's it.
|
| Whether it's AI that flagged her, or a witness who saw her, or
| her IP address appeared on the logs. Did anybody bothered to ask
| her "where were you the morning of july 10th between 3 and 4pm.
| But that's not what happened, they saw the data and said "we got
| her".
|
| But this is the worst part of the story:
|
| > And after her ordeal, she never plans to return to the state:
| "I'm just glad it's over," she told WDAY. "I'll never go back to
| North Dakota."
|
| That's the lesson? Never go back to North Dakota. No, challenge
| the entire system. A few years back it was a kid accused of
| shoplifting [0]. Then a man dragged while his family was crying
| [1]. Unless we fight back, we are all guilty until cleared.
|
| [0]: https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/29/apple_sis_lawsuit/
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23628394
| bl4ckneon wrote:
| I think you missed many important points.
|
| "The trauma, loss of liberty, and reputational damage cannot be
| easily fixed," Lipps' lawyers told CNN in an email.
|
| That sounds a LOT like a statement you make for before suing
| for damages, not to mention they literally say "Her lawyers are
| exploring civil rights claims but have yet to file a lawsuit,
| they said."
|
| This lady probably just wants to go back to normal life and get
| some money for the hell they put her in. She has never been on
| a airplane before, I doubt she is going to take on the entire
| system like you suggest. Easier said than done to "challenge
| the entire system", what does that even mean exactly?
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| It was worse than that, the reporting from an earlier
| story[0] ...Unable to pay her bills from
| jail, she lost her home, her car and even her dog.
|
| There is not a jury in the country that will side against the
| woman. I am not even sure who will make the best pop culture
| mashup - John Wick or a country song writer?
|
| (Also, what happened to journalism - no Oxford comma?)
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47356968
| frankharv wrote:
| Indeed let out on Christmas Eve with no money 1000 miles
| from your homeland.
|
| Where your home was lost to foreclosure because one JUDGE
| did not look at the paperwork.
|
| There should be a way to personally sue somebody when they
| don't do their job. Protecting the innocent. The JUDGE
| failed badly here.
|
| Flimsy evidence would mean no warrant. Do your basic
| investigation please... Rubberstamping JUDGE caused this.
|
| Why are they not named? Like they are a spectator. Infact
| they are the cause.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| TBF isn't it rather unreasonable that our system permits
| your home to be foreclosed while you're detained prior to
| a hearing?
|
| Also rather unreasonable to arrest someone who is clearly
| neither violent nor a flight risk. You could literally
| hold the trial via video conference at that point and
| there would be no downside.
| cguess wrote:
| As an aside AP Style is not use an Oxford comma, and that's
| been the rule for 50+ years
| https://www.prnewsonline.com/explainer-how-to-use-oxford-
| com...
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| This is upsetting.
| erikerikson wrote:
| Yes, finding out how badly wrong you were is never fun.
| Of course the lack of ubiquitous Oxford comma use is
| itself and separately displeasing.
| krferriter wrote:
| AP Style is simply wrong on this, then.
| segmondy wrote:
| You have more faith in the country than I do.
| redeeman wrote:
| anyone in the chain of responsibility should be punished so
| severely that they will be still crying about it in 2030
| cogman10 wrote:
| The real problem here is she'll get money, who knows how
| much, but that ultimately does nothing to actually address
| the problems in the system.
|
| Effectively it just raises taxes to cover the cost of these
| failed prosecutions.
|
| Everytime one of these cases happens, a cop and a prosecutor
| should be out of a job permanently. Possibly even jailed. The
| false arrest should lose the cop their job and get them
| blacklisted, the prosecution should lose the prosecutor's
| right to practice law.
|
| And if the police union doesn't like that and decides to
| strike, every one of those cops should simply be fired. Much
| like we did to the ATC. We'd be better off hiring untrained
| civilians as cops than to keep propping up this system of
| warrior cops abusing the citizens.
| latexr wrote:
| Yes, of course someone should have investigated, but the larger
| point here is that people don't because they are being sold a
| false narrative that AI is infallible and can do anything.
|
| We could sit here all day arguing "you should always validate
| the results", but even on HN there are people loudly advocating
| that you don't need to.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| We can barely convince powers thar be that eye-witness
| testimony is unreliable, after all.
| harshreality wrote:
| Where are you seeing people being told that AI is infallible?
| AI is being hyped to the moon, but "infallible" is not one of
| the claims.
|
| To the extent people trust AI to be infallible, it's just
| laziness and rapport (AI is rarely if ever rude without
| prompting, nor does it criticize extensive question-asking as
| many humans would, it's the quintessential _enabler_ [1])
| that causes people to assume that because it's useful and
| helpful for so many things, it'll be right about everything.
|
| The models all have disclaimers that state the inverse.
| People just gradually lose sight of that.
|
| [1] This might be the nature of LLMs, or it might be by
| design, similar to social media slop driving engagement. It's
| in AI companies' interest to have people buying subscriptions
| to talk with AIs more. If AI goes meta and critiques the user
| (except in more serious cases like harm to self or others, or
| specific kinds of cultural wrongthink), that's bad for
| business.
| jmalicki wrote:
| > Where are you seeing people being told that AI is
| infallible? AI is being hyped to the moon, but "infallible"
| is not one of the claims.
|
| I see all kinds of people being told that AI-based AI
| detection software used for detecting AI in writing is
| infallible!
|
| You want to make sure people aren't using fallible AI? Use
| our AI to detect AI? What could possibly go wrong.
| the_af wrote:
| Where did you see this claim about AI-based AI detection?
| latexr wrote:
| > To the extent people trust AI to be infallible, it's just
| laziness and rapport (...) that causes people to assume
| that because it's useful and helpful for so many things,
| it'll be right about everything.
|
| Why it happens is secondary to the fact that it does.
|
| > The models all have disclaimers that state the inverse.
| People just gradually lose sight of that.
|
| Those disclaimers are barely effective (if at all), and
| everyone knows that. Including the ones putting them there.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj4aRhHJOWU
| HDBaseT wrote:
| I don't think people on HN think "AI is infallible", I think
| people on HN believe HN is sufficient enough for "most
| tasks". In the context of HN "most tasks" refers to
| programming tasks, not arresting and jailing people tasks.
|
| You should always validate the results, but there is an
| inherint difference between an AI generated tool for personal
| use and a tool which could be used to destroy someones life.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| IANAL but AFAIK custodial interrogation triggers Miranda,
| lawyers, and those awful awful civil liberties we're trying to
| get rid of.
|
| Better just to apply Musk or Altman software to the problem and
| avoid it entirely.
| rcvassallo83 wrote:
| The thing about the legal system is there's no incentive to
| investigate to find the truth.
|
| The incentive is to prosecte and prove the charges.
|
| Speaking from the experience of being falsely accused after
| calling 911 to stop a drunk woman from driving.
|
| The narrative they "investigated" was so obviously false,
| bodycam evidence directly contradicted multiple key facts.
| Officials are interested only seeking to prove the case.
| Thankfully the jury came to the right verdict.
| hnuser123456 wrote:
| I would absolutely never call the police on a woman. Simply
| walk far away and let her be someone else's problem.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| > The thing about the legal system is there's no incentive to
| investigate to find the truth.
|
| The truth is much more complicated and involves politics. For
| example Seattle (and possibly other cities?) enacted a law
| that involves paying damages for being wrong in the event of
| bringing certain types of charges. But that has resulted in
| some widely publicized examples where the prosecutor erred by
| being overly cautious.
| retrochameleon wrote:
| There needs to be consequences for shitty, procedure-ignoring
| police work. Period.
|
| Minimum 1 year of jail time for grossly wrongful arrests that
| could be avoided with standard procedure or investigation
| tactics that were not applied.
| themafia wrote:
| > Whether it's AI that flagged her
|
| It absolutely was. There's no question of this. Now we need to
| ask how was the system marketed, what did the police pay for
| it, how were they trained to use it?
|
| > anybody bothered to ask her "where were you the morning of
| july 10th between 3 and 4pm.
|
| Legally that amounts "hearsay" and cannot have any value. Those
| statements probably won't even be admissible in court without
| other supporting facts entered in first.
|
| > we are all guilty until cleared.
|
| This is not at a phenomenon that started with AI. If you
| scratch the surface, even slightly, you'll find that this is a
| common strategy used against defendants who are perceived as
| not being financially or logistically capable of defending
| themselves.
|
| We have a private prison industry. The line between these two
| outcomes is very short.
| LocalH wrote:
| >Legally that amounts "hearsay" and cannot have any value.
|
| How is that hearsay if she's directly testifying to her own
| whereabouts?
|
| Hearsay would be if someone _else_ was testifying "she was
| in X location on july 10th between 3 and 4pm", _without_ the
| accused being available for cross
| Borealid wrote:
| No!
|
| "I was at the library" is firsthand testimony.
|
| "I saw her at the library" is firsthand testimony.
|
| "I saw her library card in her pocket" is firsthand
| testimony.
|
| "She was at the library - Bob told me so" is hearsay. Just
| look at the word - "hear say". Hearsay is testifying about
| events where your knowledge does not come from your own
| firsthand observations of the event itself.
| jmye wrote:
| > Legally that amounts "hearsay" and cannot have any value.
| Those statements probably won't even be admissible in court
| without other supporting facts entered in first.
|
| I just want to understand your argument: you believe that any
| alibi provided is hearsay, and has no legal value, and that
| they can't even take the statement in order to validate it?
| That's your position?
| tlogan wrote:
| This is a weak or misleading story about AI.
|
| First, the detective used the FaceSketchID system, which has been
| around since around 2014. It is not new or uniquely tied to
| modern AI.
|
| Second, the system only suggests possible matches. It is still up
| to the detective to investigate further and decide whether to
| pursue charges. And then it is up to court to issue the warrant.
|
| The real question is why she was held in jail for four months.
| That is the part that I do not understand. My understanding is
| that there is 30-day limit (the requesting state must pick up the
| defendant within 30 day). Regarding the individual involved,
| Angela Lipps, she has reportedly been arrested before, so it is
| possible she was on parole. So maybe they were holding her
| because of that?
|
| Can someone clarify how that process works?
| suzzer99 wrote:
| In the US there are no consequences for people in power failing
| to follow procedures, laws or regulations - except for being
| told to stop doing whatever illegal thing they're doing, and
| possibly getting sued way down the line, which gets paid by
| taxpayers.
| tlogan wrote:
| From reading more into the case, it seems the issue may be
| related to how her lawyer handled the case.
|
| They probably did "identity challenge" arguing that she is
| not the right person. But from Tennessee's perspective, she
| was considered the correct person to be arrested, so there
| was no "mistaken identity" in their system. In other words,
| North Dakota Wanted person x and here is person x.
|
| Once a judge in North Dakota reviewed the full evidence (and
| found that person they issued warrant for arrest is not one
| they want), the case was dismissed.
| frankharv wrote:
| Yes but a judge issued the warrant in the first place.
|
| Cops did not do a proper investigation and the judge green-
| lighted it.
|
| It is all on the JUDGE or possibly a magistrate who
| approved a faulty warrant.
|
| The judge failed the poor woman. FIRE him.
|
| Then sue Clearview for big bucks.
| contrast wrote:
| what's with the weird obsession all over the thread that
| it is the JUDGE who is the only person at fault here?
| lovich wrote:
| It's the same poster, I assumed they were ai at first but
| the account is from 2017.
|
| Some people are just weird
| wl wrote:
| Especially considering the judge is the only person
| involved in this who is completely immune from being
| sued.
| ciupicri wrote:
| Because the police or the prosecutor or whatever can ask
| for whatever they want, but it's up to the judge to
| refuse their stupid claims. Though the others should get
| some blame too.
| tlogan wrote:
| The judge likely issued the warrant based on the
| detective's sworn testimony. In most cases, a judge does
| not have the ability or detailed knowledge to
| independently verify whether the detective completed all
| necessary checks.
|
| This situation likely resulted from either sloppy
| investigative work or an honest mistake: the detective
| believed her booking photo matched the individual
| captured on camera.
|
| Her booking photo from a prior arrest can be found here:
| https://mugshots.com/US-States/Tennessee/Carter-County-
| TN/An...
|
| Do we have recording of the suspect they used for the
| match?
| natebc wrote:
| There's a screenshot from a security camera with the
| _actual_ suspect in the article that was posted to HN
| last week.
|
| https://www.grandforksherald.com/news/north-dakota/ai-
| error-...
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| [deleted]
| everforward wrote:
| This isn't how it works, you can invoke your right to a
| speedy trial at any point you want. You can spend 2 months
| waiting and then invoke it if you want.
|
| The timer starts from when you invoke it, though.
|
| The 2 issues, which she may be caught in, are that it's
| "speedy" from the perspective of a court, and that it
| really means "free from undue delays".
|
| There is no general definition of a speedy trial, but I
| think the shortest period any state defines is a month
| (with some states considering several months to still be
| "speedy").
|
| A trial can still be speedy even past that window if the
| prosecution can make a case that they genuinely need more
| time (like waiting for lab tests to come back).
|
| It's basically only ever not speedy if the prosecution is
| just not doing anything.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| _You get charged with something and if you want to have the
| trial right now, before you have any idea what 's going on,
| then you can insist, which basically nobody does because
| it's pretty crazy to go in blind_
|
| Actually most criminal defense attorneys recommend not
| waiving your speedy trial rights. Yes, the defense goes in
| blind. But so does the prosecution, and they're the ones
| that have to make a case.
|
| The usual result for defendants that don't waive their
| speedy trial rights is an acquittal if the case goes to
| trial (between 50-60%), which doesn't sound like a lot but
| prosecutors are expected to win >90% of their trials.
| Additionally, in many counties they don't have sufficient
| courtrooms to handle all the criminal trials within the
| speedy trial timeframe, so if the trial date comes and a
| courtroom is not available the case is dismissed _with
| prejudice_. Nonviolent misdeameanors are the lowest
| priority for a courtroom (and by that I mean even family
| law cases have priority over nonviolent misdos in most
| counties), so those cases are frequently dismissed a day or
| two before the trial date. Consequently, most prosecutors
| will offer better and better plea bargains as the trial
| date approaches.
|
| This is even more true for murders, which is why murder
| suspects don't usually get charged for a year or two after
| the crime.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Apparently I set up a unit test for Cunningham's Law
| today.
| strictnein wrote:
| I wish I could find the link, but I believe she was in jail on
| parole violation, unrelated to anything that the "AI" flagged
| her on.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| She was not
|
| Source: I live in Fargo and have been following this story
| closely. Everyone here is pissed
| frankharv wrote:
| Thanks for clarifying.
|
| I wonder who is slandering her more... WOW
|
| Maybe the citys insurance carrier hired a FIRM...
|
| They will be taking a hit.
| frankharv wrote:
| That is the first I have heard of that. A small unexplained
| blurb in this article. Already in jail on parole violation..
|
| Maybe she objected to the extradition order without good
| counsel.
|
| "I aint never been to N.Dakota". She found out the hard way
| how the law works..
|
| What about the banks being hit. Surely they have good
| cameras. This was bad mojo. I would think a Wells Fargo/BoA
| has a unit for this stuff.
|
| Finincial crimes handled like this. The banks will be sued
| too I suspect.. Deep pockets settle out.
| Supermancho wrote:
| Her picture was used as part of a fake id card, in the
| commission of a crime. The fuzzy camera footage looked like
| her (from stills I've seen) and her picture was on the fake
| ID. Those 2 circumstantial items were, apparently, enough to
| have a warrant issued.
|
| They picked her up in TN and held her for 4 months, even
| after:
|
| The ND police knew the ID was fake and the person using it
| was not her. The ND police knew she had been in TN before,
| during, and after the crime.
|
| She is still technically a suspect, even after all of this
| has come out.
| tlogan wrote:
| Ok. The mistake was made by North Dakota police (and they
| blame AI - the AI just gave them a possible match.
| Whatever.).
|
| What I still do not understand is why she spent nearly six
| months in a Tennessee jail. That part remains unclear and
| needs further explanation.
| p_l wrote:
| From the first time the story surfaced, for spurious
| reasons[1] she was booked as fugitive, and that made it
| so that there was "no need" for normal timeframe of
| hearing.
|
| [1] The reason being that she was found in Tennessee
| while being searched for a crime in another state, thus
| allowing them to treat it as interstate fugitive from a
| crime scene
| georgemcbay wrote:
| > It is still up to the detective to investigate further and
| decide whether to pursue charges. And then it is up to court to
| issue the warrant.
|
| This is how it should work, but I still think it is important
| to discuss these failures in the context of AI risks.
|
| One of the largest real-world dangers of AI (as we define that
| now) is that it is often confidently wrong and this is a
| terrible situation when it comes to human factors.
|
| A lot of people are wired in such a way that perceived
| confidence hacks right through their amygdala and they
| immediately default to trust, no matter how unwarranted.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| > The real question is why she was held in jail for four
| months. That is the part that I do not understand. My
| understanding is that there is 30-day limit (the requesting
| state must pick up the defendant within 30 day). Regarding the
| individual involved, Angela Lipps, she has reportedly been
| arrested before, so it is possible she was on parole. So maybe
| they were holding her because of that?
|
| As the article gestures towards, challenging the extradition
| can greatly extend the timeline, from 30 days after the arrest
| to 90 days after a formal identity hearing. Which isn't fair
| and isn't intuitive, but is unfortunately a long-standing part
| of the system. (Even worse, this kind of mistaken identity _can
| 't_ be challenged in an extradition hearing; the question isn't
| whether she's the person who committed the crime but whether
| she's the person identified in the warrant.)
| tlogan wrote:
| That is my assumption. I assume who ever was representing her
| made a mistake and challenged the warrant and that caused
| delay in the extradition.
| garethsprice wrote:
| The vendor they used, Clearview AI, does not allow you to request
| data deletion unless you live in one of the half-dozen states
| that legally mandate it.
|
| https://www.clearview.ai/privacy-and-requests
|
| I have suddenly becomes very interested in New York's S1422
| Biometric Privacy Act.
| dawnerd wrote:
| Sadly this is really the only tool we have right now. Just have
| to keep spamming them with delete requests because once they
| delete it'll end up back in their database eventually.
| guelo wrote:
| To get your data deleted in the states that require it you have
| to submit a photo of yourself which I really don't want to do
| for a sketchy company with ties to evil billionaire Peter
| Thiel.
| KomoD wrote:
| related https://noyb.eu/en/criminal-complaint-against-facial-
| recogni...
| clcaev wrote:
| For IL residents the policy requires collection and retention
| of your biomarkers. Presumably there is a law enforcement
| exclusion implicitly or explicitly, eg search via
| administrative warrant.
| giardini wrote:
| This has been posted at least twice before on HN.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| A lot of dumb shit happens in this arena, where if you had just
| one smart cop, it could have been prevented. Here's one from
| 2023:
|
| https://youtu.be/lPUBXN2Fd_E
| mememememememo wrote:
| Wow thought the bar for probable cause for an arrest warrant
| would be much higher. Especially to drag soneone from another
| state.
| internetguy wrote:
| Insane. Not even an apology. And they ask why we should respect
| the police.
| lucasfin000 wrote:
| The actual scariest part isn't that the AI got it wrong... it's
| that nobody felt the need to verify the AI. A tip from an
| anonymous caller can get investigated and found out if its true
| or not, and a match from a facial recognition system apparently
| does not. People haven't built better investigative tools they've
| just built better ways to skip around the investigation.
| advisedwang wrote:
| For me the worst thing in this case is that a JUDGE signed off on
| an arrest warrant with only a clearview match linking Ms Lipps to
| the crime.
|
| A judge and the warrant process are supposed to be the safeguard
| against police doing shady stuff (like relying on an AI hit to
| decide who commit a crime). But if the judges can't be
| bothered...
| shevy-java wrote:
| So cops used AI to attempt to investigate a crime. But, there was
| no crime - the arrest was wrong. Why can cops excuse themselves
| here for delegating their responsibilities (protecting society,
| allegedly that is) onto software? AI may also be written by some
| corporations to "tweak" this or that, see this foreign-looking
| guy being more likely to be AI-investigated. This is like the
| movie Minority Report - but stupid. IMO the courts should
| conclude that cops should not be allowed to use AI without having
| a prior, independently verified objective reasoning for any
| investigation. This mass sniffing that is currently going on is
| very clearly illegal. The current orange guy does not care about
| the law; see flock cameras aka spy cameras employed by the
| government on all car drivers at all times.
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