The Jefferson Parish sheriff and deputy sheriff are defendants in a federal lawsuit filed by a Georgia resident who said he was jailed for six days after being falsely linked by facial identification technology to purse thefts in Metairie.
Randal Quran Reid filed the lawsuit in the Northern District of Georgia, seeking damages for wrongful arrest and imprisonment and alleging that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated. Reid was arrested in Dekalb County in Georgia after a warrant for his arrest and extradition was issued by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, according to the legal complaint filed on Sept. 8.
The warrant falsely accused Reid of committing felony crimes, including bank fraud and identity theft, the lawsuit states. The complaint lists as defendants a Jefferson Parish deputy sheriff, Andrew Bartholomew, and Sheriff Joseph Lopinto III.
“Defendant Bartholomew knowingly and recklessly misrepresented and omitted information from his criminal arrest warrant affidavit that was material to the magistrate’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Mr. Reid,” the lawsuit says.
At the heart of the lawsuit is the contention that the misuse and overreliance on facial recognition systems in law enforcement can cause grave harm to individual rights. The parish’s facial recognition system was the sole means used to peg Reid for crimes outlined in the warrant, according to the lawsuit.
“Even when used under the best possible circumstances, facial recognition technology is extremely flawed and unreliable, particularly when attempting to identify African Americans,” the lawsuit states. “While facial recognition can be a legitimate investigative tool for law enforcement, an identification based solely on facial recognition technology does not provide probable cause for an arrest.”
Reid’s complaint cites police policies in New York City and New Orleans that limit how the technology is used.
“... The determination of a possible match candidate alone does not constitute probable cause to effect an arrest or obtain an arrest or search warrant, and … further investigation is needed to establish probable cause,” the New Orleans Police Department policy on facial recognition technology states.
The Sheriff’s Office did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit that examines technology’s impact on civil rights, opposes the use of facial recognition.
“EFF believes that face surveillance is so dangerous that the government should not be using it at all,” Adam Schwartz, EFF’s privacy litigation director, told the Louisiana Record.
Twenty cities, including Boston and San Francisco, have banned police from using it, according to Schwartz, adding that even if it is used correctly, there remains an error rate that has dangerous consequences for civil liberties.
The technology raises privacy issues because it can be used to track where people have gone throughout their day, since surveillance cameras have become ubiquitous, he said. And police can use it to determine who is present at political protests, according to Schwartz.
“This can chill and discourage people from going to protests,” he said, adding that there is also a racial justice component to the issue. Black people seem more likely to be among false positives, critics say.
“We already have a lot of racial injustice baked into the criminal justice system, such as too many arrests of black people that were not justified,” Schwartz said.
Reid is seeking damages for pain of mind, shock, emotional distress, physical manifestations of emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life and mental anguish, as well as special damages for lost wages and medical expenses.