{"schema_version":"0.10.0","id":"LR-2026-0476","record_version":1,"title":"AI facial recognition misidentification leads to wrongful jailing of Tennessee grandmother","verification":{"human_verified":false,"method":"automated_gate","auto_verified":true,"score":43.8,"score_breakdown":{"source_authority":12.1,"independent_corroboration":7.0,"implicated_party_confirmed":0.0,"citation_integrity":14.0,"specificity":0.0,"completeness":3.52,"unhedged_language":5.0},"checks":{"schema_valid":true,"every_field_cited":true,"quotes_verbatim":true,"source_fetched":true,"distinct_incident":true,"dates_plausible":true,"sources_agree":true,"source_describes_incident":true,"severe_backed_by_source":true,"record_integrity":true,"eligible":true,"about_this_case":true},"gate_version":"gate-2026-10-18.7","cross_check_model":null,"cross_check_agreement":null,"duplicate_of":null,"verified_by":null,"verified_at":"2026-11-01","extraction_run_id":null,"evidence_level":{"level":"preliminary","reason":"1 report: Futurism · subject to change","original_document":null,"reports_total":1,"reports_independent":1,"reports_derivative":0,"developing":false,"disputed":false,"rules_version":"evidence-2026-10-29.1","computed_at":"2026-11-01","history":[{"date":"2026-11-01","from_level":null,"to_level":"preliminary","reason":"1 report: Futurism · subject to change"}]},"sources_hash":"9e71a39e0157277bd6b3f27fbbd206cbb15bf7a6a12f549a698ef7b1fa591e74"},"system":{"model_name":null,"model_version":null,"developer":"unknown","harness":null,"tools_granted":[],"permissions_scope":null,"autonomy_level":"unknown","guardrails_present":[],"deployment_context":"unknown","tier":null,"lifecycle_stage":null,"integration_type":null,"intended_use":null,"safeguard_state":null,"production_intended":null},"event":{"date_occurred":null,"date_disclosed":"2026-03-15","incident_class":"other","failure_class":null,"agent_involved":null,"secondary_failure_classes":[],"trigger":"unknown","duration":null,"detection_method":"unknown","summary":"A facial recognition tool used by the Fargo, North Dakota police department in a bank fraud investigation identified a Tennessee woman, Angela Lipps, as the person in surveillance footage. Detectives treated the match as a lead. Court documents showed a detective agreed her features matched, and she said no one from the department ever called to question her. She was arrested in Tennessee as a fugitive and held for nearly six months before the case was dropped. Her lawyer produced bank records placing her more than 1,200 miles away at the time of the fraud, and police released her on Christmas Eve. The error was caught by her defence lawyer, not by the police.","tags":[],"date_detected":null,"near_miss":null,"root_cause":"oversight","root_cause_detail":null,"failure_class_detail":null,"responsible_party":"deployer","adversarial_actor":null,"input_provenance":null,"time_to_contain":null,"operations_paused":null,"remediation":null,"precursor_events":null},"impact":{"direct_loss_usd":null,"remediation_hours":null,"records_exposed":null,"third_parties_affected_count":null,"severity":"moderate","severity_because":"Test: data or systems of others touched with bounded scope. Fact: a third party's liberty was affected by a wrongful arrest and jailing, scoped to one person's case.","harm_class":["financial"],"affected_description":null,"protected_class_involved":null,"data_categories_exposed":[],"loss_range_usd":null,"reversibility":null,"downstream_exposure_count":null},"evidence":{"sources":[{"url":"https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-grandmother-jail-mistake","publisher":"Futurism","date":"2026-03-15","type":"press","title":"AI Mistake Throws Innocent Grandmother in Jail for Nearly Six Months - Futurism","archived_url":null,"attachment":"first_report","independence":"independent"}],"per_field_confidence":{"event.root_cause":"C","event.responsible_party":"C","impact.harm_class":"C","context.industry":"C","context.country":"C","event.incident_class":"D","impact.severity":"D","impact.severity_because":"D","event.summary":"C","system.autonomy_level":"D","system.deployment_context":"D","event.trigger":"D","event.detection_method":"D","system.developer":"D","event.date_disclosed":"D","context.denominator_available":"D"},"field_citations":{"event.root_cause":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The cops seemingly did little to verify the AI’s lead."}],"event.responsible_party":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"The cops seemingly did little to verify the AI’s lead."}],"impact.harm_class":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Lipps says she lost her home, her car, and her dog as a result of her stint in jail."}],"context.industry":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"According to Fargo police department files obtained by WDAY, the error arose from surveillance footage detectives viewed while investigating bank fraud cases in April and May 2025."}],"context.country":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"US marshals showed up at her doorstep last July while she was babysitting four kids and arrested her at gunpoint."}],"event.incident_class":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"To generate leads, the detectives turned to AI facial recognition software, which identified Lipps as the person in the video."}],"impact.severity":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"US marshals showed up at her doorstep last July while she was babysitting four kids and arrested her at gunpoint."}],"impact.severity_because":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"US marshals showed up at her doorstep last July while she was babysitting four kids and arrested her at gunpoint."}],"event.summary":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"To generate leads, the detectives turned to AI facial recognition software, which identified Lipps as the person in the video."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Court documents showed that a detective agreed that the suspect’s facial features, body type, and hair were a match to Lipps."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"First, Lipps was booked in a Tennessee county jail as a fugitive from justice from North Dakota."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Greenwood produced bank records showing that Lipps was more than 1,200 miles away in Tennessee at the time that investigators say the bank fraud was perpetrated."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"With Greenwood having essentially done their jobs for them, the police released her from jail on Christmas Eve, and dropped the case."}]},"notes_on_gaps":"The sources do not name the facial recognition product, its developer or version, or state an exact date of occurrence or disclosure, so those fields are omitted. The source describes a facial recognition tool, not an autonomous agent, so agent_involved is set to false as a judgement and no failure class is given. Incident class other is a judgement, as no closed category fits a facial recognition misidentification. The harm class financial reflects the stated loss of home, car and dog; the loss is not quantified in money. No remediation by the police is reported. The controls judgement (I7 missing) is inferred from the report that officers did little to verify the match. The article is press reporting based on WDAY and court documents, not an organisation's own report. The article date 2026-03-15 is not used as a disclosure date. [case created by the backfill: read by claude-haiku-5-5, backfill-2026-11-01.2, 2026-11-01; not yet reviewed] [2026-11-01: evidence level set: Preliminary (1 report: Futurism · subject to change)]"},"context":{"industry":"law enforcement","org_size_band":null,"country":"US","denominator_available":false,"denominator":null,"related_incident_ids":[],"systemic_exposure":null,"shared_model_id":null,"upstream_incident_id":null,"incident_evidence":null,"regulatory":null,"coverage":null},"analysis":{"sections":{"timeline":[{"text":"Detectives viewed surveillance footage while investigating bank fraud cases.","quote":"According to Fargo police department files obtained by WDAY, the error arose from surveillance footage detectives viewed while investigating bank fraud cases in April and May 2025.","source_index":0,"when":"April and May 2025"},{"text":"AI facial recognition software identified Lipps as the person in the video.","quote":"To generate leads, the detectives turned to AI facial recognition software, which identified Lipps as the person in the video.","source_index":0,"when":null},{"text":"Fargo police picked Lipps up from the Tennessee jail and flew her to North Dakota.","quote":"Adding insult to injury, the Fargo police didn’t pick up Lipps from her Tennessee jail until 108 days after her arrest, after which she was flown to North Dakota to make a court appearance.","source_index":0,"when":"108 days after her arrest"},{"text":"Police first interviewed Lipps while she was held in North Dakota.","quote":"The first time they interviewed her was in December, when she was being held in the North Dakota lock-up, after she had spent more than five months behind bars.","source_index":0,"when":"December"},{"text":"Police released Lipps from jail and dropped the case.","quote":"With Greenwood having essentially done their jobs for them, the police released her from jail on Christmas Eve, and dropped the case.","source_index":0,"when":"Christmas Eve"},{"text":"Local defence attorneys paid for a hotel and a nonprofit arranged her trip back to Tennessee.","quote":"Sympathetic local defense attorneys pooled together money to pay for a hotel room, and a local nonprofit called the F5 Project arranged her trip back to Tennessee.","source_index":0,"when":null}]},"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"backfill-2026-11-01.2","extracted_at":"2026-11-01","source_urls":["https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-grandmother-jail-mistake"]}}