In 2021, an individual named Robert Julian-Borchak Williams brought a claim for wrongful arrest and imprisonment, due to the misuse of facial recognition technology by the Detroit Police Department. The case highlights the significant flaws and potential dangers of relying on facial recognition systems, especially when used as the primary evidence for arrest.

Williams, a 43-year-old Black man, was arrested on January 9, 2020, in front of his family for a crime he did not commit. He was accused of shoplifting watches from a store in Detroit based on a grainy surveillance video.The Detroit Police Department used facial recognition technology to analyse the video, which incorrectly identified Williams as the suspect.The arrest was made without proper investigation into Williams’s whereabouts during the alleged crime; the only evidence against him was the facial recognition match and a subsequent photo lineup, where a security contractor, who wasn’t present during the theft, identified Williams based on the same grainy video.