Woman jailed for six months after facial recognition misidentifies her in Maryland bank fraud case

Summary

Kimberlee Williams, a 57-year-old woman from Oklahoma, was arrested after facial recognition software incorrectly matched her to surveillance images from a bank fraud case in Maryland. The misidentification occurred when a bank investigator used facial recognition to compare surveillance footage with arrest photos and reported the match to law enforcement. Police in Montgomery County, and later in Prince George’s and Anne Arundel counties, pursued charges based on the tip and a visual comparison of photos, without disclosing the use of facial recognition in their investigations. Williams was arrested in Oklahoma, transported to Maryland, and held in custody for six months while facing 16 charges across three counties. All charges were eventually dismissed, but not before she spent time in multiple jails and had her life disrupted. The ACLU later filed complaints against the involved agencies, citing a failure to disclose the role of facial recognition in her wrongful identification.