Pregnant Woman’s False Arrest in Detroit Shows “Racism Gets Embedded” in Facial Recognition Technology
By Amy Goodman,
Democracy Now
| 08. 07. 2023
A shocking story of wrongful arrest in Detroit has renewed scrutiny of how facial recognition software is being deployed by police departments, despite major flaws in the technology. Porcha Woodruff was arrested in February when police showed up at her house accusing her of robbery and carjacking. Woodruff, who was eight months pregnant at the time, insisted she had nothing to do with the crime, but police detained her for 11 hours, during which time she had contractions. She was eventually released on a $100,000 bond before prosecutors dropped the case a month later, admitting that her arrest was based in part on a false facial recognition match. Woodruff is the sixth known person to be falsely accused of a crime because of facial recognition, and all six victims have been Black. “That’s not an accident,” says Dorothy Roberts, director of the University of Pennsylvania Program on Race, Science and Society, who says new technology often reflects societal biases when built atop flawed systems. “Racism gets embedded into the technologies.”
Transcript
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Roberts, I wanted to end by asking...
Related Articles
By Ron Leuty, San Francisco Business Times | 06.16.2025
23andMe's two-step sale to a nonprofit led by former CEO Anne Wojcicki is nothing more than a dance around California's genetic privacy law, state Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a filing late Monday, one day before a judge will...
By Staff, The Associated Press | 06.10.2025
PORTLAND, Ore. — Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia on Monday filed a lawsuit in bankruptcy court seeking to block the sale of personal genetic data by 23andMe without customer consent. The lawsuit comes as a biotechnology company seeks...
By Donald Earl Collins, Al Jazeera | 05.23.2025
“The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one,” Microsoft founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates said of Elon Musk during an interview with The Financial Times earlier this month. Gates indirectly...
By Katie Sagaser, The DNA Exchange | 05.27.2025
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this piece are solely my own and do not represent those of my employer, past or present, or any affiliated institutions. This content is provided for general informational purposes only and does not...