Facial Recognition Software: 14
Your son could end up in jail tonight. The police can use a computer to pick out his face. Nijeer Parks went through exactly that in 2019. He was innocent, and he still got locked up in jail. Your face might already be in the photos the police search. Could your face be the next one they match? You'll learn how to keep your family free.
The ACLU has counted at least 14 people who were wrongly arrested. In every case, police started by matching a face.
Police in Woodbridge had a fake driver's license in their hands. They had its blurry photo run through a computer program and got Nijeer's name. Then police got a warrant without checking anything else.
Why did the police trust a single blurry match? Nijeer had felony charges hanging over him for nearly 10 months.
You don't need a criminal record for this to happen to you. The police can search your driver's license photo. You can get blamed for a stranger's crime.
Watch how the police used a computer to pick Nijeer.
Woodbridge police arrested Nijeer in February 2019. They accused him of shoplifting and assault. But someone else committed both of those crimes.
The ACLU warns about innocent people who happen to look like someone else. Police and witnesses both get fooled by a wrong match.
Police use a computer program to measure your eyes and nose. Your measurements get turned into a long string of numbers. Nijeer's numbers came out close to a stranger's.
Nijeer's old mugshot was just one face in a huge database. In ten million faces, hundreds of thousands could score a 95% match.
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Nijeer got arrested because of one blurry photo. Then Nijeer had to prove he was innocent.
NIST, a federal lab, grades this kind of software. Let's say the group with the fewest mistakes has an error rate of 1. The group with the most mistakes has a rate over 100. People with darker skin get wrongly matched more often.
In a lab, testers see the same software score 99.9%. When police use blurry photos from the street, they get lower scores. Nijeer's photo was blurry, and it was nowhere near lab quality.
In dim footage from store cameras, you lose the details of a person's face. In the shadows, your face can match a stranger's.
Nijeer spent 10 days locked in a cell. Nobody can give him those 10 days back.
The ACLU tells Nijeer's side of the story on its page. Police use this software to find suspects. Police used that same software to make Nijeer a suspect.
Police get a match when two faces just look alike. The police treat that match like it's proof. Nobody checked where Nijeer actually was. Police jailed a man because he looked like someone else.
Nijeer sued, and Woodbridge settled for $300,000. All you say is this: I want a lawyer.
Have your lawyer ask whether police used a face match. Save your receipts that show where you were. Download your phone's location history tonight.
Careful police treat a match as just a tip. Then detectives check the person's alibi and the timestamps.
Police feed a grainy photo into the software. Police get back a list of people, ranked from the best match down. Police put the top face into a lineup. And witnesses usually pick that same face.
CaraComp goes deeper on this in their write-up. On that page, they show where police skip checking the facts.
Cara Candelario covered this for the write-up. She says there's no one place that lists you. You can't opt out of police searches you don't know about.
Write a lawyer's phone number on your fridge. Keep a folder with your work schedules in it. Ask your city council about police face matching.
His charges got dropped in November 2019. No jury ever heard his case. The police never proved Nijeer did anything.
Having a clean record never kept you safe. What keeps you safe is your words and your proof.
Tonight, teach your kids to say 'I want a lawyer.' Show them how to save their phone's location history. Then practice saying it out loud together.
Your face could match a stranger's at any time. Tonight, you practice saying 'I want a lawyer.'
Every day we take one story like this and make it simple. Subscribe and tap the bell. Tomorrow's is free too. See you in today's briefing. If this helps, a like and a subscribe help us keep it coming.
