AI incident ·
Jackson Township Police in Stark County, Ohio Briefly Detained Driver After Flock Safety Alert Matched Vehicle to Stale Missing-Juvenile Hot-List Entry
In brief
An AI system built by Surveillance technology developers, Flock Safety and 1 other and deployed by Law enforcement, Jackson Township Police Department (Stark County and 1 other allegedly harmed Road users, Motorists and 2 others.
- Risk domain
- Not classified
- Occurred
- Coverage
- 1 report
What happened
In March 2023, Jackson Township police in Ohio briefly detained driver Michael Smith after a Flock Safety license-plate reader matched his vehicle to an NCIC hot-list entry from a missing-juvenile investigation that Cleveland police had closed two weeks earlier. Officers released Smith after confirming the juvenile had already been found. A federal court later held that Flock matched the plate to law-enforcement data but did not create the stale entry.
Laws that address this harm
No recorded instrument yet addresses this use case where it happened. See the open queue.
Matched from the record's risk domain and country to the instruments recorded here. A reviewer can correct the match in the repository (data/external/incident_overrides.yaml).
News reports (1)
Titles link to the original publisher; report text is not reproduced here.
Who was involved
- Alleged developer
- Surveillance technology developers Flock Safety Automated license plate reader (ALPR) developers
- Alleged harmed party
- Road users Motorists Michael Smith (Ohio driver) Drivers
AI systems implicated
Surveillance technologyLaw enforcement databasesFlock Safety automated license plate reader systemAutomated license plate readers (ALPR)
Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)
- Risk domain
- —
- Risk subdomain
- —
- Causal entity
- —
- Intent
- —
- Timing
- —
- Harm level
- —
- Sectors
- —
- Countries
- —
Related incidents
Linked by editors or by text similarity in the source dataset.
Other incidents involving Law enforcement
- Deputies in Cherokee County, Georgia, Allegedly Misused Automated License Plate Reader Data for Non-Law-Enforcement Purposes
- Border Patrol Agent Allegedly Claimed Facial Recognition Identified Minneapolis ICE Observer and Global Entry Was Reportedly Revoked Three Days Later
- West Midlands Police Reportedly Relied on Erroneous Copilot-Generated Intelligence in Maccabi Tel Aviv Away-Fan Ban Decision
- ICE Facial Recognition App Mobile Fortify Reportedly Misidentified Woman Twice During Immigration Enforcement in Oregon
- Purported Facial Recognition Error Reportedly Led to Arrest and Monthslong Jailing of Tennessee Woman in North Dakota Fraud Case
- New Orleans Police Reportedly Used Real-Time Facial Recognition Alerts Supplied by Project NOLA Despite Local Ordinance
Source record: incident #1694 on the AI Incident Database · all 1 report