{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-09-30T05:35:54.714Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"sting-operation","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"contextual","evidence":"","year":"","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":0,"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":"2025-jacksonville-sheriff-facial-recognition-wrongful-arrest-father-operation-rescue-our-children","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'When investigators ran a search on the photos of the man with dark brown hair, it led them to'; 'Investigators told Nick they relied on facial recognition tools to identify him in the pictures, he recalled.'; 'The officers walked over to the man and told him to place his hands behind his back, slapping him in cuffs in front of customers and coworkers.'; 'An investigation by The Trib reveals the 38-year-old was arrested'; 'On May 14, 2025, court records show that'; 'logged on to the Skout online dating app with the username'; 'Nick’s arrest came in conjunction with a multi-agency sting called Operation Rescue Our Children'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"After a man on the Skout app sent two photos of a former friend to an undercover officer posing as a 13-year-old during Operation Rescue Our Children in May 2025, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office investigators ran a search on the photos that led them to the friend, a 38-year-old supermarket assistant manager, and arrested him at work six days after the conversation ended; he recalls being told investigators relied on facial-recognition tools to identify him.","causal_attribution":"The Trib's investigation from court records and the man's recollection; the sheriff's office did not respond. The Trib's expert source attributes the arrest chiefly to inadequate policing."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'There is no indication in the court documents that officers carried out any other investigative work before arresting Nick, beyond verifying that he was the person in the photos'; 'Court records show that the day after Nick’s arrest, investigators issued the first of a string of subpoenas for account information behind the suspect’s online profile'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The Trib found no indication in the court documents of any investigative work before the arrest beyond verifying that he was the person in the photos; it reports that court records show investigators subpoenaed the account information the day after the arrest, and that the information showed the account belonged to another man.","causal_attribution":"The Trib's reading of court records; the records themselves were not read."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'costing them $45,000 in lost wages and legal fees and traumatizing his kids.'; 'A judge barred him from having any contact with the children for a month and a half'; 'And for nearly three months, he wasn’t able to reside at his family’s home'; 'The $105 a week for the court-ordered ankle monitor that tracked his every move.'; 'Forced to spend the night in jail'; 'The rent they couldn’t pay while Nick was suspended from his job.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"He spent a night in jail, was barred by a judge from any contact with his two children for a month and a half, could not live at home for nearly three months, wore a court-ordered ankle monitor and was suspended from his job; the family says the ordeal cost $45,000 in lost wages and legal fees and traumatised the children.","causal_attribution":"The family's account to the Trib."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'at his home on July 31, 2025, and he confessed to propositioning someone he thought was a young girl'; 'But the next day, prosecutors finally dropped the charges against Nick. On Aug. 4, 2025, a judge ordered Nick’s case expunged because the arrest was made “contrary to law or by mistake.”'; 'remained publicly available on the Duval courts website for more than a year after the judge ordered the records expunged.'; 'admitted to using photos of other people'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The account's owner confessed on 31 July 2025 to using photos of former friends; prosecutors dropped the charges the next day and on 4 August 2025 a judge ordered the case expunged, but the records remained publicly available on the Duval County clerk's website for more than a year.","causal_attribution":"Court records as reported by the Trib; the clerk's office acknowledged the failure to expunge."}],"effects":[{"label":"arrested at work, jailed overnight and charged with soliciting a child after investigators identified him from photos an impostor sent in a police sting","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"},{"label":"barred from contact with his two young children for a month and a half, fitted with an ankle monitor and suspended from work; the family puts the cost at $45,000","claim_id":"c3","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://floridatrib.org/2026/09/28/how-ai-powered-bungling-by-florida-cops-cost-a-father-his-freedom-and-45000/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live on 2026-09-29 in full (The Florida Trib, 28 September 2026, investigation by Kate Payne based on court records and interviews). Republished by the Florida Phoenix, which returned HTTP 403 and was not read.","independence_group":"florida-trib-investigation"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["justice","relationships","finance","work"],"unknowns":["Which facial-recognition system was used and what match result it returned.","Whether the sheriff's office has reviewed the arrest or disciplined anyone (the Trib reports the lead detective applied for deferred retirement).","Whether the man will bring a legal claim."],"geography":{"basis":"The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office arrested the man at a Jacksonville supermarket; the case was in Duval County, Florida (The Florida Trib).","court_countries":["US"],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published as a contextual case consistent with the existing facial-recognition wrongful-arrest rows: investigators identified a man through a search of photos an impostor sent in a sting, which he recalls being told used facial-recognition tools, and arrested him without further checks. The account rests on one investigative report drawing on court records and interviews; the sheriff's office did not respond. The man is pseudonymous in the source and his family is not named here.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The man recalls that investigators told him they relied on facial-recognition tools to identify him in the photos, and the Trib reports that investigators ran a search on the photos that led them to him. The Trib names FACESNXT as the system Jacksonville investigators use but does not establish that it was the tool run here. The decisions to seek a warrant and arrest without further investigation were the officers', prosecutors' and a judge's. The Trib's headline and narrative state in its own voice that officers relied on 'artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition tools'; the only sourcing it gives for that link is his recollection, and it cites no facial-recognition result from the court records.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"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","summary":"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.","incidentDate":"2025-05-01","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"month","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2026-09-28","aiSystem":"Facial-recognition search tools used by Jacksonville Sheriff's Office investigators to identify the man in photos sent during the sting (per his recollection of what investigators told him); the Trib notes that Jacksonville and other Florida agencies use the FACESNXT system maintained by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, but does not state which tool was run in this case","aiProduct":"Unidentified facial recognition system","severity":"high","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["loss_of_liberty","legal_harm","financial_loss","relationship_disruption","psychological_distress","reputational_harm","professional_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The man was arrested, jailed overnight, charged with child-sex offences, monitored and separated from his children for weeks; he and his wife told The Florida Trib the ordeal cost $45,000 in lost wages and legal fees and traumatised their children.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":3,"affectedCountStatus":"documented_minimum","affectedCountEvidence":"The arrested man and his two young children, whom the Trib reports were traumatised and separated from him (The Florida Trib). His wife describes her own distress and the financial burden; she is not added separately. Documented minimum 3.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"US-FL","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"media_coverage","outcomeStatus":"resolved","primarySourceUrl":"https://floridatrib.org/2026/09/28/how-ai-powered-bungling-by-florida-cops-cost-a-father-his-freedom-and-45000/","primarySourceLabel":"The Florida Trib, 28 September 2026: How AI-powered bungling by Florida cops cost a father his freedom and $45,000","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T03:21:41.436188+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:07.027222+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["facial-recognition","wrongful-arrest","jacksonville","florida","sting-operation","impersonation","justice","made-claim-about"]}]}