Facial Recognition Technology – Error

A recent article by Daniel Wu states Facial recognition error led to woman jailed six months in MD (Apr. 16, 2026).

“It’s very obvious it’s you,” an officer in Montgomery County said to Williams, who was handcuffed to a table in the police department.

Williams had several prior convictions for writing bad checks in Oklahoma, and the person who appeared in surveillance photos, accused of making fraudulent withdrawals in Maryland, looked like a match in surveillance photos – the same build, the same age, the same shape face.

But Williams was adamant. That wasn’t her. She lived in Oklahoma and had never been to Maryland, she said, until police arrested her and flew her in to be questioned.

Ms. Williams was held in jail for six months.  The charges were dismissed.

She would not learn for years how she came to be accused: A bank investigator reported to Montgomery County police that facial recognition technology had identified Williams as the suspect in the Maryland fraud cases. Montgomery County police did not disclose that Williams had been identified using facial recognition when they sought charges against her, according to police records.

Several criminal justice experts said the use of facial recognition should have been disclosed in the police department’s incident report and application for charges.

The American Civil Liberties Union (“ACLU”) has sent letters of complaint seeking an apology and policy changes.

Perhaps due to the date of the arrest, the article does not discuss Maryland’s Facial Recognition Technology Statute (Aug. 14, 2025).

In Johnson v. State,  2025 WL 2237582 (Appl. Ct. Md. Aug. 6, 2025)(unreported),  a Criminal Conviction [Was] Reversed After State Failed to Timely & Fully Disclose its Use of a Type of Artificial Intelligence (Aug. 11, 2025).

A current discussion of FRT is posted at Facial Recognition Technology in Maryland Criminal Cases (Jan. 28, 2026).