Porcha Woodruff, 8 Months Pregnant, Wrongfully Arrested Due to Facial Recognition Error in Detroit
Incident Details
Summary
On January 16, 2023, Porcha Woodruff, a 32-year-old Black woman who was 8 months pregnant, was arrested at her home in Detroit after facial recognition technology misidentified her as a suspect in a carjacking and robbery. Despite having no connection to the crime, she was held in custody for 11 hours. She suffered physical distress during detention and later reported a miscarriage. Detroit police had used DataWorks Plus facial recognition to match her to surveillance footage; she was the sixth documented case in the US of a wrongful arrest based on FRT, and the first documented woman. She subsequently sued the City of Detroit for civil rights violations. The case intensified calls for restrictions on police use of facial recognition technology.
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