ACLU Sues After Facial Recognition Falsely Identifies Florida Man as a Child Abductor

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Source: reason.com 6/11/26

Police arrested and charged Robert Dillon with a heinous crime based on nothing more than a faulty image search.

 

Police arrested a man in Florida for attempted child abduction in a town he had never visited, and the only evidence linking him to the crime was an AI facial recognition hit. Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), he is now suing the officers and agencies who put him through it.

In November 2023, police in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, responded to a call about an attempted child abduction at a McDonald’s. Witnesses said an adult man allegedly tried to get the child, identified as a girl under 12 years old, to leave the restaurant with him. According to a police report, facial recognition software concluded with 93 percent confidence that the suspect was Robert Dillon.

In August 2024, Deputies arrested Dillon at his home in Fort Myers, Florida—hundreds of miles away, at the opposite end of the state. “Are you shitting me, man?” Dillon asked the arresting deputy. “I haven’t been out of Fort Myers in two years.” Further, he also said he had never been to Jacksonville Beach.

Dillon posted bail and pleaded not guilty to enticing or luring a child—a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. More than two months later, prosecutors dropped the charges after…

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