TECH | Facial Recognition - 5 Black Men Arrested by Computer
The short version: Shakaama's rundown of Black men wrongfully arrested after facial recognition misfires is a stark reminder that unaccountable algorithmic policing is already ruining lives.
Our Take
Credit to Shakaama for keeping a running tally of what happens when police departments treat a facial recognition "match" as probable cause instead of a lead worth double-checking. Five wrongful arrests isn't a glitch, it's a pattern, and it's the same pattern that should worry anyone tracking the quiet rollout of Flock Safety cameras in their town. Different tech, same core problem: a machine flags you, an officer trusts the machine, and due process gets an afterthought.
We cover ALPRs, not face scanners, but the throughline is identical — mass biometric surveillance sold as a crime-fighting silver bullet, deployed with little transparency, minimal audit trails, and almost no real accountability when it gets it wrong. Flock's own network quietly hoovers up plate data (and increasingly vehicle "fingerprint" details) on everyone, guilty or not, and hands cops a tool that's easy to over-trust just like facial recognition. The wrongful arrests in this video are a preview of what happens when any of these systems gets treated as infallible.
If you want to see how far this kind of camera surveillance has already spread near you, check our map, and if you'd rather not wait for your own cautionary-tale headline, our take-action page has concrete steps for pushing back at the city council level.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Shakaama, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.