Macy's and Sunglass Hut sued for $10M over face-recog arrest and 'sexual assault'
- Reference: 1706058254
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/01/24/macys_sunglass_hut_facial_recognition/
- Source link:
In 2022, two men robbed a Sunglass Hut kiosk inside a Macy's in Houston, Texas, and stole sunglasses and thousands of dollars in cash at gunpoint. While Houston cops investigated the crime, the head of loss prevention for EssilorLuxottica – the multinational that owns Sunglass Hut – reportedly identified Harvey Eugene Murphy Jr as one of the suspects, based on the conclusions of some facial-recognition software, and accused him of carrying out two other robberies.
The AI software analyzed camera footage from the store, and wrongly matched Murphy to one of the suspects using "old" photos of him, according to his lawyers, who claimed the technology involved was "error prone and faulty."
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As well as the AI matching, one of the store's workers also picked out Murphy as one of the robbers from a set of photographs presented by investigators. He was arrested when he tried to renew his driver's license at a DMV and thrown in jail. While in custody he was "beaten, forced on the ground, and brutally gang raped," by three men, according to [2]court documents [PDF] filed in a district court in Harris County, Texas.
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Murphy told his court-appointed defense lawyer he couldn't have committed the crime since he was in California at the time of the robbery. His alibi was confirmed, all criminal charges were dropped, and he was released after a few hours behind bars.
"Murphy's story is tragic," his subsequent lawsuit, brought this month, claimed. "But worse than that, it is scary for everyone in this country. Any one of us could be improperly charged with a crime and jailed based solely on error-prone facial recognition software. The companies that use this kind of software know it has a high rate of false positives, but they still use it to positively identify alleged criminals.
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"Imagine going to the DMV to get your license renewed and being told you are under arrest for multiple felonies. Even though you are completely innocent, you will automatically be jailed until you can prove your innocence. During this time, you will be subjected to the known dangers of jail cells overcrowded with violent and dangerous criminals. All of this because a company told the police, based on artificial intelligence, that you were the one who committed terrible crimes."
Murphy has accused Macy's and EssilorLuxottica of malicious prosecution, false imprisonment, and gross negligence. He is seeking $10 million in damages. The Register has asked both orgs for comment.
[6]Senate bill aims to stop Uncle Sam using facial recognition at airports
[7]Interpol makes first border arrest using Biometric Hub to ID suspect
[8]UK policing minister urges doubling down on face-scanning tech
[9]Cops cuff pregnant woman for carjacking after facial recog gets it wrong, again
Caitlin Seeley George, campaigns and managing director at Fight for the Future, told The Register Macy's admitted it was using facial recognition software in the case. George said that in her opinion the technology shouldn't be used at all.
"Private companies that use facial recognition tech are seriously endangering customers, and this case further exemplifies what we already know: there is no way to safely use facial recognition – it must be banned," she declared.
"And whether it's companies or cops, the end result is that facial recognition is used to police our actions, our ability to move freely and safely throughout society, and to exercise our basic rights," she added. ®
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[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZbCZey7vvyePyvsHIMVWhgAAAcY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://regmedia.co.uk/2024/01/23/harvey_eugene_murphy_jr_lawsuit.pdf
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZbCZey7vvyePyvsHIMVWhgAAAcY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZbCZey7vvyePyvsHIMVWhgAAAcY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZbCZey7vvyePyvsHIMVWhgAAAcY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/01/traveler_privacy_protection_act/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/01/interpol_biohub_arrest/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/31/uk_police_minister_lfr/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/08/facial_recognition_detroit_arrest_error/
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
"store's workers also picked out Murphy"
But let's blame AI, because there's already case law and precedent on liability for human error.
Re: "store's workers also picked out Murphy"
We don't know the precise details of them picking him out though do we? After all the company (their employer) had already "recognised" him using AI and informed the cops. No reason not to think they didn't run the match past the employees beforehand whereby human biases took over. If I was one of the people present during the robbery and you showed me a photo of someone that is, presumably, a close enough match and asked "is this the one" I'd likely confirm it too. Whereas if I were just presented with a selection of similar looking individuals the result may well be different.
And, yes, let's blame AI because too many people consider computers infallible whereas their opinion of people is less, and rightly, so.
Re: "store's workers also picked out Murphy"
Eyewitness recognition has long been known to be unreliable. If you take somebody that looks kinda like the real criminal and ask them if this is the guy, they'll usually answer yes. Present them with a dozen - including a couple ringers - and tell them the guy may or may not be in the lineup, and the witness has a better chance of being right. (But still not great.)
Re: "store's workers also picked out Murphy"
And, according to theory, you can get better results on eye-witness testimony by excluding cases by use of AI -- because AI generally uses different recognition algorithms, it hallucinates orthogonally to human perception.
Of course, neither human nor AI is immune to the problem of "use of old photograph", as is alleged in this case. The odd thing in this case is that the victim was out of custody in a couple of hours -- arrest procedures can take all day, and nobody would have been even considering his alibi in the first couple of hours. In the case of my pasty-pink relative, it took them that long just to decide that he wasn't black.
I hope he gets every penny, and then some. AI is fine for drawing pretty pictures and the like, but is not fit for use in applications such as this.
Facial recognition by law enforcement is bad enough, and should be outlawed. But its use by companies in stores is totally unacceptable. A mass boycott of the companies involved, together with an extremely vocal campaign of negative publicity towards them would seem to be in order. In a land of mass consumerism, where the customer is allegedly always right, they need to learn the hard way that this is not acceptable.
Behind bars for a few hours
And he was gangraped? What sort of gaols are they running in Usania?
He's sueing for too little
He should go for much more. While it's never a slam dunk in front of a jury, its hard to see how he won't prevail. So nail 'em from the get go so even if they settle, they feel some pain.