JACKSONVILLE BEACH, FL – A Florida man has filed a federal lawsuit backed by the ACLU against the Jacksonville Beach Police Department, alleging that a flawed AI facial recognition system led to his wrongful arrest for a heinous crime he did not commit.
The Lawsuit and the AI Error
The plaintiff, Richard Dillon, became the target of an investigation following a November 2023 incident where a man allegedly tried to lure a 12-year-old girl away from a McDonald’s in Jacksonville Beach.
According to the complaint filed on Wednesday, investigators used an AI-driven image matching technology called FACESNXT. The software generated a “93% match” between Dillon and grainy surveillance footage, despite Dillon being more than 300 miles away at the time of the crime.
Ignored Evidence and Arrest Trauma
Dillon stated that he immediately told detectives they had the wrong man, pointing out distinct surgical scars on his face from skin cancer surgery that the suspect did not have. Furthermore, the lawsuit alleges police used poor-quality, shadowed, and “off-axis” photos to run the search, ignoring standard protocol.
Despite the discrepancies and a lack of independent investigation, Dillon was arrested eight months later at his home by Lee County deputies. He was held overnight in jail and forced to pledge the title of his truck to post bond. All charges were dropped two months later, but Dillon says the trauma has completely ruined his personal life.
Pushing for Technology Guardrails
The ACLU argues that law enforcement treated a software “candidate lead” as absolute confirmation of guilt.
“Police let an error-prone artificial intelligence system stand in for a real investigation,” the ACLU stated in the complaint.
This case is the latest in a growing number of legal challenges across the United States aimed at establishing strict guardrails around police use of facial recognition software. Both the Jacksonville Beach Police Department and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office have declined to comment on the pending litigation.
