SurveillanceHigh
NYPD Facial Recognition System Allegedly Produced Erroneous Match That Reportedly Resulted in Wrongful Detention of Trevis Williams
- Occurred
- Apr 21, 2025
- Published
- Aug 26, 2025
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
The NYPD's facial recognition system allegedly misidentified Trevis Williams as a suspect in a Union Square indecent exposure case. Despite reportedly notable physical differences and exculpatory phone data, Williams was arrested, jailed for more than two days, and charged. The case was later dismissed.
Developers
- Facial recognition system developers
Deployers
- NYPD
- New York Police Department
- Law enforcement
- Facial recognition system deployers
Harmed parties
- Trevis Williams
- Law enforcement
- Judicial integrity
- General public of New York
- General public
Classification
Category confidence: 95%
Severity confidence: 90%
Rationale: Facial recognition misuse led to wrongful detention and criminal charges.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8