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NOPE
Medium reported severity

New York: man misidentified through facial recognition in an indecent exposure case arrested and jailed two days

Reporting from August 2025 says an NYPD facial recognition search of images from a February 2025 indecent exposure in Manhattan's Union Square produced a possible match to a man who did not fit the described suspect. The man was placed in a photo lineup, arrested in April 2025 and jailed for two days. Prosecutors dismissed the case in July 2025 after his public defenders showed he was misidentified. The man says the process of becoming a correctional officer 'kind of' froze after the arrest. The NYPD says it never arrests solely on a facial recognition match.

AI system
Unidentified facial recognition system
Occurred
Apr 2025
Reported
26 August 2025
Event location
United States
What the AI did
Made a claim about the person
Reported harm
Loss of LibertyProfessional Harm
Whose AI use
An institution’s AI use
Setting
Justice · Work
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources
6 claims: 6 reported. 7 open questions
People reported harmed
1 person

AI system as recorded: NYPD facial recognition system (product and vendor not identified in the inspected sources)

Reported harm

ABC7 and Hell Gate report the man was arrested and jailed for two days before prosecutors dismissed the case, and the man says a correctional officer hiring process 'kind of' froze after the arrest.

What remains unknown

  • The New York Times article could not be read, so details attributed to it are relayed second-hand.
  • The facial recognition product, the source of the comparison photo and the match score are unknown.
  • The Hell Gate article is behind a subscriber paywall after its opening paragraphs; only the visible text was inspected.
  • The date of the facial recognition search and match (between the 10 February offense and the April arrest) is not stated in the inspected sources; the incident date is the reported arrest month.
  • The exact arrest day, the court and the dismissal date are not stated in the inspected sources.
  • Whether the correctional officer hiring process resumed is unknown.
  • Which evidence besides the possible match supported the arrest and lineup is unknown.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. Hell Gate and ABC7 report the arrest followed a facial recognition possible match. The system, the search image and the match output were not produced, and the New York Times original was not readable.

6 claims: 6 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported An indecent exposure suspect search produced a possible facial recognition match to the affected man, who was arrested in April 2025, jailed for two days and charged. Prosecutors dismissed the case in July 2025.

Causal attribution. The reporting attributes the arrest to the facial recognition possible match followed by police decisions (a photo lineup and the arrest). The inspected sources do not establish what other evidence the police relied on.

  • hellgatenyc.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    After his mug shot was generated as a possible match to the offender in an indecent exposure case, he was arrested and spent two days in jail in April before the charges against him were dropped in July.
  • abc7ny.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    was falsely arrested and jailed for two days despite not matching the physical description given by the victim of a sex crime.
  • abc7ny.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Prosecutors dismissed the case last month after ... public defenders, the Legal Aid Society, were able to prove he was falsely identified.
Reported The man reports that the suspect was eight inches shorter and 70 pounds lighter than him, and reports say location data from his phone placed him miles from the crime.

Causal attribution. Physical and location discrepancies are the man's account and a relayed New York Times report. The New York Times article was not readable and the phone data was not inspected.

  • abc7ny.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    "The man they were looking for, he was eight inches shorter than me and 70 pounds lighter."
  • abc7ny.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Location data from his cell phone showed that ... was miles away from the crime, the New York Times first reported.
Reported A victim was shown a photo lineup that included the man and misidentified him.

Causal attribution. Hell Gate summarises the New York Times account. Its chain traces to the same original reporting as the New York Times article that was not readable here.

  • hellgatenyc.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    for NYPD investigators to make the decision to place him in a photo lineup, which was then shown to the victim, who misidentified him.
Reported The man says he was in the process of becoming a correctional officer and that after his arrest they "kind of froze the hiring process."

Causal attribution. Single first-person account relayed by one outlet. No employer statement was inspected and the current hiring status is unknown.

Reported The NYPD stated that even with a possible facial recognition match it cannot and will never make an arrest solely using facial recognition technology.

Causal attribution. Police statement relayed by ABC7. It bears on how the match was used and does not address this arrest specifically.

  • abc7ny.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    "even if there is a possible match, the NYPD cannot and will never make an arrest solely using facial recognition technology."
Reported The Legal Aid Society wrote to the city Department of Investigation asking it to investigate NYPD facial recognition use after this and other false arrests.

Causal attribution. Advocacy response. Legal Aid statements are the organisation's allegations.

  • hellgatenyc.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    On Monday, the Legal Aid Society sent a letter to the City's Department of Investigation urging the agency to open a probe into the NYPD's use of facial recognition technology
  • legalaidnyc.org(opens in new tab) context · English
    who was wrongfully arrested based on a false facial recognition match

Sources

3 sources inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Event countries: United States. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.

ABC7 places the offense in Manhattan's Union Square and the arrest by the NYPD. The man's residence and the court are not stated in the inspected sources.

Reviewed for publication 2026-09-29: ABC7 New York and a Legal Aid Society release were read in full. Hell Gate was read only as far as its subscriber paywall allows. The New York Times original was blocked (HTTP 403 and reader relays) and is cited unread. Claims are attributed and left at reported status. The affected person is not named.

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

0 AI participants · 1 other person harmed

One man reported arrested and jailed. The offense victim and other people are not counted as harmed by the AI.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). New York: man misidentified through facial recognition in an indecent exposure case arrested and jailed two days. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-new-york-union-square-facial-recognition-false-arrest-two-days-jail

BibTeX

@misc{2025_new_york_union_square_facial_recognition_false_arrest_two_days_jail,
  title = {New York: man misidentified through facial recognition in an indecent exposure case arrested and jailed two days},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-new-york-union-square-facial-recognition-false-arrest-two-days-jail}
}

Related cases

High Unidentified facial recognition system

Jacksonville, Florida: a 38-year-old father was arrested at work in May 2025 and charged with soliciting a child after sheriff's investigators identified him, he says with facial-recognition tools, from photos an impostor had sent to an undercover officer; charges were dropped in August 2025 after the real sender confessed, and the family says the ordeal cost $45,000

The Florida Trib (28 September 2026, republished by the Florida Phoenix) reports that in May 2025, during the multi-agency sting Operation Rescue Our Children, a man using the Skout dating app sent an undercover officer posing as a 13-year-old girl two photos of someone else: a former friend, a supermarket assistant manager and father of two whom the Trib calls 'Nick'. Investigators told him they relied on facial-recognition tools to identify him in the pictures, he recalled, and the Trib found no indication in court documents of other investigative work before his arrest. He was handcuffed at work, charged with soliciting a child via computer and unlawful use of a two-way communications device, spent a night in jail, wore an ankle monitor, was barred from contact with his two young children for a month and a half and could not live at home for nearly three months. The account's owner, a man with a prior conviction for the same offence, admitted on 31 July 2025 using the photos; charges against the father were dropped the next day and a judge ordered the case expunged on 4 August 2025, though the records stayed publicly online for more than a year. The family says the ordeal cost $45,000 in lost wages and legal fees and traumatised the children. The sheriff's office did not respond to the Trib's questions.

High Unidentified facial recognition system

Maryland/Oklahoma: Kimberlee Williams, an Oklahoma woman who says she had never been to Maryland, was arrested in June 2021 and jailed about six months on bank-fraud charges in three Maryland counties after a facial-recognition search by an unknown CrimeDex respondent named her; all charges were dismissed by December 2021 and the ACLU filed complaints in April 2026

According to police and bank records reviewed by the Washington Post, in December 2019 a woman made fraudulent withdrawals at a SunTrust branch in Potomac, Maryland; branches in two other Maryland counties were also defrauded. A bank investigator posted the surveillance photos on CrimeDex, an online network of police and corporate investigators; an unknown respondent ran the image through facial-recognition software and returned Kimberlee Williams's name and photo, and the investigator told Montgomery County police that facial-recognition software had identified her. Police in Montgomery, Prince George's and Anne Arundel counties charged her in 2020 on the investigator's identification and their own visual comparison of photos (two departments also cited her old Oklahoma check-fraud convictions), without reported checks of her whereabouts; Montgomery County police did not disclose the facial-recognition search in the charging application, according to police records reviewed by the Washington Post and the ACLU. On 23 June 2021 she was arrested at the gate of Fort Sill near Lawton, Oklahoma, while accompanying her daughter on a DoorDash delivery, spent about three weeks in an Oklahoma jail, was flown to Maryland, and faced 16 charges including 12 felonies. The counties dismissed the charges one after another, in October and December 2021, after about six months in jail. Her daughter says she was depressed afterwards; the ACLU says the ordeal harmed her mental and physical health. On 14 April 2026 the ACLU and ACLU of Maryland sent complaint letters to the three departments seeking an apology and reforms.

Medium Unidentified facial recognition system

Southampton: Alvi Choudhury arrested at home on suspicion of a Milton Keynes burglary after a police retrospective facial recognition match, held nearly 10 hours, claiming damages

The Guardian, in a joint report with Liberty Investigates, reported on 25 February 2026 that Alvi Choudhury, a 26-year-old software engineer, was arrested at his home in Southampton in January 2026 on suspicion of a £3,000 burglary in Milton Keynes, about 100 miles away, and held in custody for nearly 10 hours. Thames Valley Police had used automated retrospective facial recognition software, which matched him with CCTV footage of the burglary suspect. Choudhury says the man in the footage looked about 10 years younger and had different features. Thames Valley Police wrote to him that the arrest may have been the result of bias within facial recognition technology, and told the Guardian that the decision rested on the investigating officers’ own visual assessment and was not influenced by racial profiling. Choudhury is claiming damages from Thames Valley Police and Hampshire Constabulary.

Medium Snapchat content-flagging system

Washington, Illinois: Snapchat flagged a student teacher's private joke to the FBI; she was arrested at her school and lost her placement

On 29 January 2025, a 22-year-old student teacher at a District 50 elementary school in Washington, Illinois, vented in a private Snapchat group chat with her boyfriend and two roommates after a third-grade student turned off her computer mid lesson-plan, asking whether she should 'shoot the child or just the whole school' (per sheriff's reports). Snapchat's systems flagged the message and warned the FBI, which notified the Tazewell County Sheriff's Office at 1:06 p.m. Deputies interviewed her at the school, confirmed she sent it as a joke, searched her phone and belongings with her consent and found no weapons, and arrested her on a disorderly conduct charge; they concluded she had spoken out of 'exasperation' with no intent to harm and no threat to the school. The district told parents she would not return to complete her educational assignment.

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