The new lawsuit that shows facial recognition is officially a civil rights issue

Williams's wrongful arrest, which was first reported by the New York Times in August 2020, was based on a bad match from the Detroit Police Department's facial recognition system. Two more instances of false arrests have since been made public. Both are also Black men, and both have taken legal action to try rectifying the situation. Now Williams is following in their path and going further--not only by suing the Detroit Police for his wrongful arrest, but by trying to get the technology banned. On Tuesday, the ACLU and the University of Michigan Law School's Civil Rights Litigation Initiative filed a lawsuit on behalf of Williams, alleging that his arrest violated Williams's Fourth Amendment rights and was in defiance of Michigan's civil rights law.