{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-09-30T07:55:06.883Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"x","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"contextual","evidence":"","year":"2021","response":"","severity":"","verification":"","view":"incidents","sort":"added"},"totalIncidents":2,"coverage":{"cases":2,"countries":1,"languages":1,"unknownLocation":0,"locationPending":0,"unknownLanguage":0,"unknownDate":0,"lawsuits":1,"regulatory":0,"minors":0,"coreRelations":0,"contextualRelations":2,"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":"2026-kimberlee-williams-maryland-facial-recognition-wrongful-arrest-six-months-jail","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'Someone on the listserv ran the image through facial recognition technology and sent back Ms. Williams’ name and photo as a purported match to the suspect.'; 'the detective assigned to the case concealed that the entire basis of Ms. Williams purported identification was a lead from an unknown and unreliable face recognition technology search by an unknown entity.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'A respondent to the investigator’s CrimeDex bulletin “suggested, using facial recognition software” that Williams was the suspect, he told police.'; 'Each department charged Williams in 2020 based on the identification reported by the bank investigator and a visual comparison of Williams and the woman in the bank from photos, according to charging documents and incident reports.'; 'Montgomery County police did not disclose that Williams had been identified using facial recognition when they sought charges against her, according to police records.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"'The bank shared the result with detectives from three Maryland counties'; 'relying instead on only their own visual comparisons of photos of Ms. Williams and photos of the suspect.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"A bank investigator shared surveillance images of the fraud suspect on the CrimeDex network; a respondent used facial-recognition software to name Williams as a match; police in three Maryland counties charged her on the investigator's identification and their own visual comparison of photos, and the Montgomery County detective did not disclose the facial-recognition search when seeking charges.","causal_attribution":"The ACLU's account and the Washington Post's review of police records, charging documents and bank correspondence agree. The Post published on the day the ACLU sent its letters and does not say how it obtained the records; it attributes the expungement, the statute of limitations and the social-media alibi material to the ACLU. The Post adds that Montgomery and Anne Arundel police also cited her past check-fraud convictions; Anne Arundel police say they corroborate outside tips."},{"id":"c2","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'On June 23, 2021, Ms. Williams was accompanying one of her daughters, a DoorDash driver'; 'Ms. Williams spent 23 days in an Oklahoma jail before a Maryland officer arrived'; 'Those cases were finally dismissed in December 2021. All told, Ms. Williams spent six months behind bars.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'and jailed for six months before the charges were dismissed, according to court records.'; 'Williams was held in jail in Oklahoma for about three weeks before being transported to Maryland.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"Williams was arrested in June 2021 (on 23 June, according to the ACLU) at a military base near Lawton, Oklahoma, held about three weeks in Oklahoma, transported to Maryland, charged in three counties, and jailed about six months in total before the charges were dismissed.","causal_attribution":"ACLU and Washington Post (citing court records) independently."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'She faced 16 charges across the three counties, including 12 felonies.'; 'The two other counties dismissed their charges against Williams in December.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"'Montgomery County prosecutors dropped their charges against Ms. Williams in October 2021'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"She faced 16 charges across the three counties, including 12 felonies; Montgomery County dropped its charges in October 2021 and the other two counties dismissed theirs in December 2021.","causal_attribution":"Charge count from the Washington Post only; the October 2021 Montgomery dismissal and December 2021 dismissals are reported by both the ACLU and the Post."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'said her mother was depressed after leaving jail and struggled to readjust after the time behind bars.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"'this ordeal took a significant toll, with serious consequences for her mental and physical health to this day.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"After her release Williams was depressed and struggled to readjust, according to her daughter; the ACLU says the ordeal had serious consequences for her mental and physical health.","causal_attribution":"Family and advocate accounts; Williams herself told the Post she thinks illnesses caught in jail may have worsened a later condition, which is not established."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Today, the American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Maryland sent letters to three Maryland police departments on behalf of Kimberlee Williams'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'The Montgomery County Police Department declined to comment on the ACLU’s complaint, citing an active investigation.'; 'said the agency “investigates and corroborates any outside tips and leads it receives before applying for criminal charges.”'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"On 14 April 2026 the ACLU and ACLU of Maryland sent complaint letters to the Montgomery, Prince George's and Anne Arundel county police departments seeking an apology and reforms; Montgomery County police declined to comment citing an active investigation, and Anne Arundel police said they independently corroborate outside tips.","causal_attribution":"ACLU announcement and the departments' statements to the Banner."}],"effects":[{"label":"arrested in Oklahoma and jailed about six months in Oklahoma and Maryland on 16 bank-fraud charges, all later dismissed, after a facial-recognition search named her; depression and health effects reported","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/woman-wrongly-jailed-for-months-based-on-faulty-facial-recognition-technology-demands-apology-from-maryland-police-departments","kind":"press_release","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live on 2026-09-27 (ACLU press release, 14 April 2026). The ACLU represents Williams.","independence_group":"aclu"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.aclu.org/cases/kimberlee-williams-wrongful-arrest","kind":"other","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live on 2026-09-27 (ACLU case page). Same organisation as s1.","independence_group":"aclu"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/apr/14/that-wasnt-me-how-facial-recognition-led-to-a-woma/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live on 2026-09-27: the Washington Post article (14 April 2026) as syndicated in full by the Spokesman-Review. The Post reviewed police and bank records, charging documents and interview video and interviewed Williams and her daughter. The washingtonpost.com original timed out (Archive 403).","independence_group":"washington-post"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://www.thebanner.com/community/criminal-justice/aclu-facial-recognition-maryland-police-YXUU7AXEMNFIHKHJ5FZB2RLJPA/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live on 2026-09-27 (Baltimore Banner, April 2026). Mostly relays the ACLU; cited only for the departments' own responses to the Banner.","independence_group":"baltimore-banner"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["others_use","institutional_use"],"contexts":["justice"],"unknowns":["Who ran the facial-recognition search on CrimeDex, with which software, and what the returned match contained.","How much weight each department gave the facial-recognition lead against their own photo comparisons and her prior convictions.","The exact release date in December 2021.","Whether the three departments have answered the ACLU complaints, and whether anyone else was charged.","Whether jail conditions contributed to her later illness (her own suggestion).","The dates of the frauds: the Washington Post gives December 2019 for the Potomac withdrawals but also quotes her daughter placing the Maryland cases in December 2020 and January 2021; the dates in the other two counties are not reported."],"geography":{"basis":"The frauds and charges were in Montgomery, Prince George's and Anne Arundel counties, Maryland; Williams lived in Oklahoma and was arrested at Fort Sill near Lawton, Oklahoma (ACLU; Washington Post).","court_countries":["US"],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as a contextual case in which a facial-recognition search's identification of a person led to her arrest and about six months in jail: the ACLU and the Washington Post, which reviewed police records independently, agree on the facial-recognition lead, the charging and the dismissals. Williams is named in her own right; family members are not named.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-27"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The bank investigator told Montgomery County police that a CrimeDex respondent 'suggested, using facial recognition software' that Williams was the suspect (Washington Post, from police records), and the ACLU says someone on the listserv ran the image through facial-recognition technology and returned her name and photo. The software, its operator and the match output were not produced; police also made their own photo comparisons, and two departments cited her old convictions. The made_claim_about relation reflects the search's identification of her as the suspect.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"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","summary":"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.","incidentDate":"2021-06-23","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2026-04-14","aiSystem":"An unidentified facial-recognition search run by an unknown respondent on the CrimeDex investigators' network against a bank's surveillance image (ACLU; Washington Post); the software and operator are not identified","aiProduct":"Unidentified facial recognition system","severity":"high","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["loss_of_liberty","legal_harm","psychological_distress"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"Williams spent about six months in jails in Oklahoma and Maryland on 16 charges that were all dismissed; the ACLU and the Washington Post attribute the arrest to a facial-recognition match that police relied on without independent investigation, and her daughter says she was depressed afterwards (ACLU; Washington Post via Spokesman-Review).","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One person arrested and jailed, Kimberlee Williams (ACLU; Washington Post). Family members' distress is described but not counted. Exact 1.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"US-MD","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"media_coverage","outcomeStatus":"pending","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/apr/14/that-wasnt-me-how-facial-recognition-led-to-a-woma/","primarySourceLabel":"Washington Post via the Spokesman-Review, 14 April 2026: 'That wasn't me': How facial recognition led to a woman being jailed for 6 months","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-27T03:39:40.380472+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:43.031229+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["facial-recognition","wrongful-arrest","police","crimedex","maryland","oklahoma","aclu","justice","made-claim-about"]},{"id":"2026-st-louis-county-gatlin-facial-recognition-wrongful-arrest-lawsuit","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'Jan 13, 2025 | COMPLAINT against defendant All Defendants ... filed by Christopher Gatlin'; 'Jan 29, 2025 | AMENDED COMPLAINT against defendant Matthew Shute, St. Louis County, Surescan Technology, LLC, The City of Saint Louis, Matthew Welle, Cody Goodwin'; 'Oct 15, 2025 | MEMORANDUM AND ORDER: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendant City of St. Louis's Motion to Dismiss Count 9 (Doc. 22 ) is denied. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendant Matthew Welle's Motion to Dismiss Counts 2-5 and 10-12 (Doc. 25 ) is granted in part in that Count V is hereby dismissed, and denied in all other respects.'; 'Aug 13, 2026 | SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT against defendant All Defendants'; 'Aug 25, 2026 | SUMMONS Returned Executed filed by Christopher Gatlin. Amazon Web Services, Inc. served on 8/18/2026'; 'Aug 27, 2026 | ANSWER to 105 Amended Complaint'; 'Sep 8, 2026 | ORDER granting 115 Defendant's Consent Motion for Extension of Time to Answer ... due no later than September 21'; 'Sep 17, 2026 | MOTION for Extension of Time to File Answer or Otherwise Plead ;Proposed extension date September 28, 2026 by Defendant Amazon Web Services'; 'Aug 31, 2026 | ADR COMPLIANCE REPORT ... The parties did not achieve a settlement.'; 'Jul 23, 2026 | AMENDED CASE MANAGEMENT ORDER ... Jury Trial set for 11/1/2027 09:00 AM ... Pretrial Conference set for 10/27/2027'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'Christopher Gatlin alleged Thursday in an amended complaint that his arrest and indictment were the product of shoddy police work, poor training, police misconduct, and the use of a defective facial recognition program developed by Amazon for law enforcement use, known as the Rekognition program.'; 'Gatlin originally filed the lawsuit in January 2025, but amended the complaint to name Amazon as a defendant'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"'Amazon has until Sept. 28 to file a response to the suit's allegations.'; 'Gatlin sued in January of this year. His suit lists 14 counts against the various defendants'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"}],"assertion":"Gatlin filed a civil-rights suit in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri on 13 January 2025 against St. Louis County, the City of St. Louis and named officers (an amended complaint of 29 January 2025 also named Surescan Technology, LLC, dismissed on 8 May 2025); on 15 October 2025 the court denied the City's motion to dismiss and granted Welle's motion only as to Count V; on 13 August 2026 the court granted leave for a second amended complaint adding Amazon Web Services, which was served on 18 August 2026; the county, its officers, the city and Welle answered on 27 August 2026; AWS's response deadline was extended to 21 September 2026 and AWS moved on 17 September for a further extension to 28 September (no ruling on the docket when read); a July 2026 mediation did not settle; a pretrial conference is set for 27 October 2027 and a jury trial for 1 November 2027.","causal_attribution":"Court docket entries; the Surescan dismissal is docket entry 31 (8 May 2025); the 28 September date is AWS's requested extension (motion of 17 September, unruled when read) and the Post-Dispatch's report; the trial date is from the amended case management order of 23 July 2026 (the earlier 23 August 2027 date in the 5 May 2026 order was superseded)."},{"id":"c2","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'Eight months later, in August 2021, Shute and one of the other officers, St. Louis Officer Matthew Welle, revisited the case and uploaded a \"grainy surveillance photo\" from the bus into SMRT.'; 'The program spit out a list of names. On that list: Gatlin.'; 'Gatlin was charged with first-degree assault and held in jail for almost two years.'; 'Gatlin's public defender filed a motion to suppress the photo identification, arguing it was unconstitutionally suggestive, and the judge agreed'; 'On March 14, 2024 — more than two years after Gatlin's arrest — prosecutors dismissed the charges.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"},{"locator":"'Biometric Update reported that Gatlin was arrested on August 14, 2021, and remained incarcerated for roughly 17 months while his case was pending.'; 'St. Louis County Judge Brian May suppressed the witness identification in February 2024 after finding officers had not followed accepted impartial-lineup procedures, and prosecutors dismissed the charges the following month, Biometric Update reported.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"'A man who was wrongfully arrested and held in the St. Louis County Jail for two years sued Amazon Web Services LLC along with the city and county over their allegedly improper use of facial recognition technology.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"'Christopher Gatlin, arrested by police in St. Louis, Missouri (August 2021)'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"Gatlin was arrested in August 2021 (13 August per the Post-Dispatch's 'four days' after the 9 August lineup; 14 August per Biometric Update via Hoodline) for a December 2020 assault on a security guard at the St. Charles Rock Road MetroLink station after two officers of a joint county-city MetroLink team uploaded a grainy bus surveillance photo into the St. Louis Mugshot Recognition Technology System and the guard, after prompting, picked Gatlin from a photo lineup; he was charged with first-degree assault and held roughly 17 months to almost two years; the identification was suppressed as unconstitutionally suggestive and prosecutors dismissed the charges on 14 March 2024.","causal_attribution":"The Post-Dispatch's own account of the investigation and the suit, Biometric Update via Hoodline, Bloomberg Law and the ACLU; the jail duration is stated differently by each (roughly 17 months while pending; almost two years; two years) and the arrest date differs by a day."},{"id":"c3","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'in a statement, the company said its terms of service prohibit the use of its facial recognition technology in criminal investigations.'; '\"We expect our customers to comply with those terms,\" the company said in an unsigned statement.'; 'it said it would \"fully investigate\" any additional information that comes out during litigation.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"},{"locator":"'The company told Biometric Update that its terms of service prohibit the use of Rekognition's face-comparison feature by police departments in connection with criminal investigations. Amazon's current Rekognition documentation also states the technology does not support images that are too blurry or grainy for a human to recognize a face'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"Amazon says its terms of service prohibit the use of its facial recognition technology in criminal investigations, that it expects customers to comply and that it will fully investigate any information that emerges in the litigation; Biometric Update adds that Rekognition's documentation excludes images too blurry or grainy for a human to recognise a face.","causal_attribution":"Amazon's statements to the Post-Dispatch and to Biometric Update (via Hoodline)."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Gatlin, who now lives outside of Missouri, says he suffers from mental health issues since he was released.'; 'No one has been charged with Feldman's assault.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"}],"assertion":"Gatlin says he has suffered from mental health issues since his release; the assault victim, who was not the person the officers were pursuing in this suit, continues to suffer lasting injury and no one has been charged with the assault.","causal_attribution":"Gatlin's own account to the Post-Dispatch."}],"effects":[{"label":"arrested and jailed roughly 17 months to almost two years on a first-degree assault charge dismissed in March 2024, after officers acted on a facial-recognition match from a grainy bus photo and a suggestive photo lineup; lasting mental-health effects reported","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69538618/gatlin-v-welle/","kind":"court_docket","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live on 2026-09-26 (CourtListener docket 69538618, descending and ascending entry pages). Entry text quoted; the pleadings themselves were not opened (no free RECAP PDFs listed).","independence_group":"courtlistener-docket"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/amazon-facial-id-tech-targeted-in-st-louis-false-arrest-suit","kind":"legal_press","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live on 2026-09-26 (Bloomberg Law News, 14 August 2026). Only the opening paragraphs before the subscriber wall were rendered; the cited passages are from them.","independence_group":"bloomberglaw"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/more-than-a-dozen-wrongful-arrests-due-to-police-reliance-on-facial-recognition-technology","kind":"advocacy_statement","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live on 2026-09-26 (ACLU, 14 April 2026). Lists Gatlin among fourteen known facial-recognition wrongful arrests.","independence_group":"aclu"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://hoodline.com/2026/09/st-louis-county-man-jailed-in-case-involving-facial-id-match-sues/","kind":"news_aggregator","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live on 2026-09-26 (Hoodline, 25 September 2026). Aggregates the Post-Dispatch, Biometric Update, IDTechWire and Bloomberg Law; used here mainly for the Biometric Update passages (17 months, 14 August 2021 arrest, Judge May, February 2024 suppression), which were not read directly.","independence_group":"hoodline-aggregating-stltoday-biometricupdate"},{"id":"s5","url":"https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-courts/article_21ae18eb-d1d4-44e8-9e8f-0c6f3c92b94d.html","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read on 2026-09-26 (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 25 September 2026). The page delivered the article body in the Lee/BLOX ROT47 obfuscation; decoded locally (bodies/stltoday-gatlin-decoded.txt) and read in full: the assault, the investigation, the SMRT upload, the body-camera lineup, the dismissal date, the suit's counts and Amazon's statement.","independence_group":"stltoday"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["justice"],"unknowns":["Whether the mugshot system's match was the sole basis for the arrest or how it was weighed against the lineup identification; the complaint's allegations have not been tested.","The exact arrest date (13 August 2021 per the Post-Dispatch's account; 14 August per Biometric Update via Hoodline) and the length of detention (roughly 17 months while pending per Biometric Update; almost two years per the Post-Dispatch; two years per Bloomberg Law).","The size of the mug-shot database (more than 500,000 per the suit as reported by the Post-Dispatch; more than 250,000 per Biometric Update via Hoodline).","Whether Rekognition was in fact the engine behind SMRT during the 2021 search; Amazon disputes intended use, and AWS had not yet answered when the docket was read.","The contents of the second amended complaint and the 15 October 2025 order, which were not opened.","The plaintiff's current state of residence (outside Missouri)."],"geography":{"basis":"The assault and the arrest concerned the St. Charles Rock Road MetroLink station in north St. Louis County and the plaintiff was jailed in St. Louis County (Post-Dispatch; ACLU: 'arrested by police in St. Louis, Missouri'); the suit is in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri (docket). The plaintiff now lives outside Missouri (Post-Dispatch); his state of residence is not given.","court_countries":["US"],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as a contextual case in which a facial-recognition system's match about a person contributed, on the plaintiff's account, to a wrongful arrest and roughly 17 months to almost two years' detention: the litigation is documented on the federal docket, the arrest, lineup and dismissal are reported by the Post-Dispatch (read in full), Biometric Update via Hoodline and Bloomberg Law, and the ACLU lists the case. The allegations against the police and Amazon remain allegations.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-26"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The complaint alleges, and the Post-Dispatch, Biometric Update and IDTechWire reporting summarised by Hoodline describes, that officers uploaded the bus photo into the St. Louis Mugshot Recognition Technology System and built the investigation around its match; Bloomberg Law reports the amended complaint's allegation that the system used Amazon's Rekognition. No court finding on the system's role is reported; the ACLU lists the case as a facial-recognition wrongful arrest.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"St. Louis County, Missouri: Christopher Gatlin was arrested in August 2021 after officers ran a grainy bus surveillance photo through a regional facial-recognition system and was held roughly 17 months (Post-Dispatch and Bloomberg Law: about two years) on a first-degree assault charge dismissed in March 2024; his federal civil-rights suit (filed January 2025) was amended in August 2026 to add Amazon Web Services, whose Rekognition technology the complaint says underpinned the match","summary":"Christopher Gatlin was arrested on 14 August 2021 for an assault at the St. Charles Rock Road MetroLink station after a joint St. Louis County and city team uploaded a grainy, blurry surveillance photograph from a bus into the St. Louis Mugshot Recognition Technology System, a facial-recognition tool that searches stored mug shots (more than 500,000 uploaded, the suit says per the Post-Dispatch; more than 250,000 per Biometric Update via Hoodline), and built the investigation around the resulting match together with a witness identification; he was charged with first-degree assault and held roughly 17 months (the Post-Dispatch says almost two years), a county judge suppressed the witness identification as unconstitutionally suggestive, and prosecutors dismissed the charges on 14 March 2024 (Post-Dispatch; Hoodline citing Biometric Update; Bloomberg Law). Gatlin sued St. Louis County, the City of St. Louis and named officers in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri on 13 January 2025; on 15 October 2025 the court denied the city's motion to dismiss and granted a detective's motion only as to one count; on 13 August 2026 the court allowed a second amended complaint adding Amazon Web Services, which the complaint says supplied the Rekognition program the system used; the county, city and officers answered on 27 August 2026, AWS's response was extended to 21 September 2026 and on 17 September it moved for a further extension to 28 September (no ruling on the docket when read), and a jury trial is set for 1 November 2027 (CourtListener docket). Amazon told the Post-Dispatch that its terms of service prohibit the use of its facial recognition technology in criminal investigations and that it would fully investigate any information that emerges in the litigation. The ACLU lists Gatlin among fourteen people known to have been wrongfully arrested in the US because police relied on erroneous facial-recognition results.","incidentDate":"2021-08-14","incidentEndDate":"2024-03-14","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2025-01-13","aiSystem":"St. Louis Mugshot Recognition Technology System (SMRT), a regional facial-recognition tool created by St. Louis County with an Amazon Rekognition credit in June 2018 and loaded with more than 500,000 mug shots according to the suit (Post-Dispatch; Biometric Update via Hoodline gives more than 250,000)","aiProduct":"St. Louis mugshot recognition (SMRT)","aiCompany":"Amazon Web Services (Rekognition, per the amended complaint as reported)","severity":"high","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["loss_of_liberty","legal_harm","psychological_distress"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"Gatlin was jailed for roughly 17 months to almost two years on a first-degree assault charge dismissed in March 2024 after the identification evidence was suppressed; his suit attributes the arrest to reliance on a facial-recognition match from an unusable photograph together with a suggestive lineup (the complaint's allegations as reported by the Post-Dispatch, Bloomberg Law and Hoodline; the ACLU lists the case as a wrongful arrest). He told the Post-Dispatch he has suffered from mental health issues since his release.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One person arrested and jailed, the plaintiff (docket; Hoodline; ACLU). Exact 1.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"US-MO","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"lawsuit_ongoing","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69538618/gatlin-v-welle/","primarySourceLabel":"CourtListener docket, Gatlin v. Welle, 4:25-cv-00043 (E.D. Mo.), read 26 September 2026","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-26T04:07:10.387911+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:58:41.366922+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["facial-recognition","wrongful-arrest","police","rekognition","amazon","lawsuit","civil-rights","missouri","st-louis","made-claim-about"]}]}