{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-10-22T10:17:45.488Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"alleged_false_match","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"","evidence":"","year":"2019","response":"","severity":"","verification":"","view":"incidents","sort":"added"},"totalIncidents":1,"coverage":{"cases":1,"countries":1,"languages":1,"unknownLocation":0,"locationPending":0,"unknownLanguage":0,"unknownDate":0,"lawsuits":0,"regulatory":1,"minors":0,"coreRelations":0,"contextualRelations":1,"mixedRelations":0,"unknownRelations":0,"relationPending":0,"relationUnknown":0},"countingNote":"Distinct public cases in this selection. People counts apply within individual cases only; cross-case person overlap has not been resolved. No population incidence estimate.","affectedCountNote":"Interpret person counts with affectedCountStatus and the reported effects. Unquantified zeros are placeholders, not a measured zero.","source":"AI incidents","publisher":"NOPE","url":"https://nope.net/incidents","license":"CC BY 4.0"},"incidents":[{"id":"2019-us-rite-aid-facial-recognition-false-matches-led-staff-to-search-and-eject-shoppers-ftc-says","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'The technology generated alerts sent to Rite Aid’s employees, including by email or mobile phone application notifications (“match alerts”), indicating that individuals who had entered Rite Aid stores were matches for entries in Rite Aid’s watchlist database.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Rite Aid used facial recognition in its stores to send employees match alerts saying that people entering were matches for its watchlist database, and employees acted on the alerts.","causal_attribution":"FTC allegation; Rite Aid neither admits nor denies."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'In numerous instances, the match alerts that led to these actions were false positives' and 'Rite Aid employees recorded thousands of false positive match alerts between December 2019 and July 2020.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The FTC alleges that in numerous instances the alerts that led employees to watch, eject, accuse, search or report customers to police were false positives, and that employees recorded thousands of false-positive alerts between December 2019 and July 2020.","causal_attribution":"FTC allegation from Rite Aid records; not adjudicated."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Rite Aid employees stopped and searched an 11-year-old girl on the basis of a false- positive facial recognition match. The girl’s mother told Rite Aid that she had missed work because her daughter was so distraught by the incident.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Employees stopped and searched an 11-year-old girl on a false-positive match; her mother told Rite Aid she missed work because her daughter was so distraught.","causal_attribution":"FTC allegation based on a complaint to Rite Aid."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'an alert indicating that a consumer—' and 'specifically a Black woman—was a match for an enrollment image that Rite Aid employees' and 'described as depicting “a white lady with blonde hair.” In response to the alert, Rite Aid' and 'employees called the police and asked the woman to leave the store before realizing the alert was'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The system matched a Black woman to an enrollment image employees described as a white woman with blonde hair; employees called the police and asked her to leave before realising the alert was false.","causal_attribution":"FTC allegation drawn from Rite Aid's internal investigation."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Consumers complained to Rite Aid that they had experienced humiliation and feelings of stigmatization as a result of being confronted' and '[E]very black man is not [a] thief nor should they be made to feel like one' and 'I feel different from this experience when I walk into a store now it’s weird.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Customers complained of humiliation and stigmatisation from false-positive stops; one wrote of feeling different entering stores afterwards and of being made to feel like a thief.","causal_attribution":"Consumer complaints as quoted by the FTC."},{"id":"c6","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'are prohibited for five (5) years from the effective date of this Order from deploying or using, or assisting in the deployment or use of, any Facial Recognition or Analysis System' and 'Defendants neither admit nor deny any of the allegations in the Complaint'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"Rite Aid agreed to a proposed stipulated order prohibiting it for five years from using facial recognition or analysis systems in retail stores, while neither admitting nor denying the complaint's allegations.","causal_attribution":"Terms of the filed proposed order; its entry by the court was not inspected."}],"effects":[{"label":"girl stopped and searched on a false facial-recognition match","claim_id":"c3","direction":"negative"},{"label":"police called and customer asked to leave on a false match","claim_id":"c4","direction":"negative"},{"label":"humiliation and stigmatisation from false-positive stops","claim_id":"c5","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/2023190_riteaid_complaint_filed.pdf","kind":"court_filing","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-22 from the Internet Archive capture (ftc.gov direct returned 404); no translation needed. FTC complaint, E.D. Pa. 2:23-cv-05023, Document 1, filed 19 Dec 2023; the text of page 1 was not extractable.","independence_group":"ftc-v-rite-aid-2023-filings"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/2023190_riteaid_stipulated_order_filed.pdf","kind":"court_filing","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-22 from the Internet Archive capture (ftc.gov direct returned 404); no translation needed. Proposed stipulated order and attached decision and order, Document 2-2, filed 19 Dec 2023.","independence_group":"ftc-v-rite-aid-2023-filings"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["everyday_life","privacy"],"unknowns":["When and where the girl was searched and the police were called on the woman.","Which vendors supplied the technology (the complaint does not name them in the text read).","Whether and when the court entered the proposed order.","How many customers were stopped, searched or ejected on false matches."],"geography":{"basis":"The complaint places Rite Aid's facial recognition use in its US stores (New York City, Los Angeles and other US cities); it was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The described customers' countries are not stated.","court_countries":["US"],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":[]},"publication":{"basis":"Published as a contextual case (made_claim_about, informed_decision_about): the FTC alleges Rite Aid's facial recognition wrongly matched customers to a watchlist and staff acted on the false alerts by searching an 11-year-old girl and calling police on a woman; Rite Aid agreed to a five-year ban without admitting the allegations.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-22"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The FTC complaint says Rite Aid's facial recognition system compared customers' faces with a watchlist and sent employees match alerts, that the alerts were in numerous instances false positives (the system wrongly identified a person as someone in the database), and that employees acted on those false alerts by searching an 11-year-old girl, calling police on a Black woman and asking customers to leave. The system's own wrong matches are the alleged error; Rite Aid neither admits nor denies.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about","informed_decision_about"]},"name":"US: FTC says Rite Aid's facial recognition falsely matched shoppers to a watchlist, leading staff to search an 11-year-old girl and call police on a woman","summary":"In a complaint filed in federal court in Pennsylvania on 19 December 2023, the US Federal Trade Commission alleged that the pharmacy chain Rite Aid used facial recognition in its stores to match customers against a database of people it suspected of shoplifting or other wrongdoing, and that staff acted on the match alerts by following, searching, ejecting and publicly accusing customers and by calling the police. The FTC says many alerts were false positives: employees recorded thousands of false-positive alerts between December 2019 and July 2020, staff stopped and searched an 11-year-old girl on a false match, and employees called the police on a Black woman matched to an image of a white woman with blonde hair. Rite Aid agreed to a proposed order barring it from using facial recognition in retail stores for five years, without admitting or denying the allegations.","incidentDate":"2019-12-01","incidentEndDate":"2020-07-01","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"month","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2023-12-19","aiSystem":"Facial recognition technology from two vendors (not named in the complaint) that Rite Aid deployed in its stores to compare customers' faces with a watchlist database and send match alerts to employees","aiProduct":"Unidentified facial recognition system","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["psychological_distress","reputational_harm","other_material_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The FTC alleges that false facial-recognition matches led Rite Aid staff to search, eject, publicly accuse and call police on customers, including an 11-year-old girl who was searched and a Black woman on whom police were called; customers described humiliation and stigmatisation.","frameworkFacets":[],"pathwayDirection":"inward","causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":3,"affectedCountStatus":"partial","affectedCountEvidence":"Three people described individually in the complaint: the 11-year-old girl searched on a false match, the Black woman on whom police were called, and the customer who wrote about being treated as a thief. The complaint's thousands of recorded false-positive alerts are alerts, not counted people, so others remain unquantified.","victimAgeRange":"unknown","jurisdiction":"US","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"regulatory_action","outcomeStatus":"unknown","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/2023190_riteaid_complaint_filed.pdf","primarySourceLabel":"FTC v. Rite Aid Corp., E.D. Pa. 2:23-cv-05023, complaint filed 19 Dec 2023","firstPublishedAt":"2026-10-22T03:13:38.451275+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-22T03:13:38.451275+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["facial_recognition","retail","alleged_false_match","ftc"]}]}