AI incident #1545 ·
Florida Police Reportedly Wrongfully Arrested Commercial Crabber Robert Dillon After Allegedly False Facial Recognition Match
What happened
Florida police reportedly arrested commercial crabber Robert Dillon in August 2024 after the statewide FACES facial recognition system purportedly identified him as a possible match to a suspect shown in grainy surveillance images from Jacksonville Beach. Dillon reportedly lived more than 300 miles away and said he had never visited the city. He reportedly spent a night in jail and posted bond using his truck title.
Editor's notes (AI Incident Database)
Timeline notes: The date of 08/26/2024 for this incident ID is taken from the date of arrest; the ACLU filed its lawsuit on 06/10/2026. The incident ID was created 06/18/2026.
Only the incident metadata is stored here. The underlying news reports are on the AI Incident Database (CC BY-SA 4.0); use the links above to read them.
News reports (2)
Coverage catalogued by the AI Incident Database. Titles link to the original publisher; the text is not reproduced here.
Who was involved
- Alleged deployer
- Pinellas County Sheriff's Office Law enforcement agencies Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Jacksonville Beach Police Department Facial recognition system deployers
- Alleged developer
- Pinellas County Sheriff's Office Facial recognition system developers
- Alleged harmed party
- Wrongfully arrested individuals Robert Dillon Privacy People misidentified by facial recognition systems Biometric data subjects
AI systems implicated
Law enforcement facial recognition systemsFacial recognition systemsFace Analysis Comparison and Examination System Next (FACESNXT)AI-enabled decision support systems
Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)
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Related incidents on the AI Incident Database
Linked by AIID editors or by its text-similarity model.