A Fort Myers resident wrongfully arrested nearly two years ago in the Middle District of Florida highlights the risks of police agencies relying on facial recognition technology. Robert Dillon, a 52-year-old man, was flagged by a facial recognition algorithm as the man who tried to lure or entice a child under 12 years old at a McDonald's in Jacksonville Beach. However, the algorithm was wrong. He is now suing the city of Jacksonville Beach as well as law enforcement officers from the Jacksonville Beach Police Department, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office (JSO), and Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.
Florida Man's Wrongful Arrest Suit Highlights Dangers of AI Facial Recognition in Policing. A Fort Myers resident wrongfully arrested nearly two years ago in the Middle District of Florida highlights the risks of police agencies relying on facial recognition technology.
The 52-year-old man, Robert Dillon, lives more than 300 miles from Jacksonville Beach, where the incident occurred, and had never set foot in the area. He was flagged by a facial recognition algorithm as the man who tried to lure or entice a child under 12 years old at a McDonald's.
However, the algorithm was wrong. Instead of testing the machine's answer against the evidence, the officers built a case to confirm it. Mr. Dillon was arrested and prosecuted for one of the most stigmatizing crimes a person can face. He is now suing the city of Jacksonville Beach as well as law enforcement officers from the Jacksonville Beach Police Department, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office (JSO), and Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.
The actual suspect allegedly approached a girl at the McDonald's shortly before midnight on November 2, 2023. The Face Analysis Comparison and Examination System (FACES) flagged Mr. Dillon as a possible match. FACES has been operated by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office since 2001, making it one of the oldest police face-recognition systems in the country.
At its peak in 2021, its tens of millions of Florida mug shots and driver's license photos were accessible to law enforcement agencies across the state. Mr. Dillon was denied any involvement in the case in December, but was arrested at his home in front of his wife the next August.
He was held overnight in jail, forced to borrow money and pledge the title to his truck to post bond, subjected to months of criminal prosecution, and publicly branded with a mugshot that remains accessible online, long after the charges were dropped. Community members still approach him in public to ask about the case. He no longer feels comfortable being friendly to people in public.
The investigating officer treated the facial recognition algorithm's output as a near-certain identification, omitted critical exculpatory evidence from his arrest warrant application, and failed to pursue routine investigative steps that would have immediately excluded Mr. Dillon as a suspect. The arrest warrant that deprived Mr. Dillon of his liberty was the product of a cascade of investigative failures by the lead investigator, Jacksonville Beach Police Department officer Scott O'Connell.
Officer O'Connell has a documented history of volatility and poor judgment, having previously been terminated from the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office for threatening to 'blow up' the agency, later reinstated, then arrested for domestic battery before resigning under the weight of those charges. Jacksonville Beach PD hired him anyway, assigned him as lead investigator on a sensitive child-luring case, and later promoted him to corporal after his investigation resulted in the wrongful arrest and prosecution of an innocent man.
Mr. Dillon said in a statement that the night he spent in jail after they arrested him for a crime he did not commit still haunts him to this day. He will never get over how terrified and worried he was, wondering if he'd ever go home to his wife and daughter again. Florida police must implement safeguards and ensure this never happens to anyone else, because until they do, nobody is safe, argued a representative from the Technology Project.
No one should lose their freedom or be scared to leave their house because an algorithm got it wrong
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