Tag: police

Detroit police can no longer use facial recognition results as the sole basis for arrests

Posted on by faz_business


The Detroit Police Department has to adopt new rules curbing its reliance on facial recognition technology after the city reached a settlement this week with Robert Williams, a Black man who was wrongfully arrested in 2020 due to a false face match. It’s not an all-out ban on the technology, though, and the court’s jurisdiction to enforce the agreement only extends four years. Under the new restrictions, which the is calling the strongest such policies for law enforcement in the country, police cannot make arrests based solely on facial recognition results or conduct a lineup based only on facial recognition leads.

Williams was arrested after facial recognition technology flagged his expired driver’s license photo as a possible match for the identity of an alleged shoplifter, which police then used to construct a photo lineup. He was arrested at his home, in front of his family, which he says “completely upended my life.” Detroit PD is known to have made at least two other wrongful arrests based on the results of facial recognition technology (FRT), and in both cases, the victims were Black, the ACLU noted in its announcement of the settlement. Studies have shown that facial recognition is .

The new rules stipulate that “[a]n FRT lead, combined with a lineup identification, may never be a sufficient basis for seeking an arrest warrant,” according to a summary of the agreement. There must also be “further independent and reliable evidence linking a suspect to a crime.” Police in Detroit will have to undergo training on the technology that addresses the racial bias in its accuracy rates, and all cases going back to 2017 in which facial recognition was used to obtain an arrest warrant will be audited.

In an op-ed for published today, Williams wrote that the agreement means, essentially, that “DPD can no longer substitute facial recognition for basic investigative police work.”

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Japanese police arrest suspect Nintendo threat-maker

Posted on by faz_business


Police in Japan arrested on April 3 a 27-year old man suspected of threatening Nintendo staff, events, and spectators. Due to these threats, Nintendo announced in December it was canceling several events, like Nintendo Live and the Splatoon Koshien 2023 finals, and postponing others. Japanese newspaper the Kyoto Shimbun first reported the arrest. According to the report, the man admitted to the threats.

Nintendo of America confirmed the arrest in a statement to Polygon, where a representative also said the Japanese headquarters “was receiving constant threats targeting its employees, and most recently, received threats targeting the spectators and staff of the Splatoon Koshien 2023 Grand Final.”

Here’s the full statement:

Nintendo’s Japanese headquarters was receiving constant threats targeting its employees, and most recently, received threats targeting the spectators and staff of the Splatoon Koshien 2023 Grand Final. Given the threats, Nintendo postponed and cancelled the series of events, and has been in contact with the police ever since. Nintendo is extremely thankful for the investigation and effort made by the police on arresting the suspect. Nintendo’s Japanese headquarters will continue to cooperate fully with the police’s investigation.

Nintendo Live, the event that was canceled in December, is a big, multi-day celebration of everything Nintendo. It was set to be held at the Tokyo Big Sight exhibition center in January. The Splatoon grand finals were slated for December at the Tokyo Ota Ward General Gymnasium.

News of Nintendo’s event cancelation came during the trial for the devastating 2019 Kyoto Animation arson attack that killed 36 people and injured many others. The attack was one of the deadliest in recent Japanese history. The suspect plead guilty and was sentenced to death in January. In the aftermath of the attack, Japanese police have treated threats with “heightened seriousness,” according to Japan Today. Police have also arrested several people who’ve made threats against both Sega and Square Enix.