Pregnant woman’s arrest in carjacking case spurs call to end Detroit police facial recognition

By JOEY CAPPELLETTI
Associated Press

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A Detroit woman who was arrested in connection with a suspected robbery and carjacking when she was eight months pregnant is suing the city and one of its police officers for what she says is an over- reliance on facial recognition technology. Prosecutors dropped the case in March but say that facial recognition technology led to the arrest of the woman, Porcha Woodruff. The lawsuit against the City of Detroit and a police officer claims that Woodruff has suffered, among other things, “past and future emotional distress” because of the arrest. Critics say the facial recognition technology results in a higher rate of misidentification of people of color than of white people.