A Tennessee grandmother who spent six months in jail after facial recognition tech falsely linked her to a North Dakota bank fraud investigation now wants compensation for what happened. Angela Lipps is suing the City of Fargo and a Fargo Police Department detective for $10 million over the incident, which led to the loss of her home, car, and dog.
In July 2025, a team of US Marshals arrested 50-year-old Lipps in Tennessee at gunpoint while she was babysitting four young children. She was booked into the county jail in Tennessee as a fugitive from justice wanted in North Dakota.
That’s a bit vindictive. They probably didn’t pick the software or didn’t even know how it worked.
The idiots that did, and that trusted the facial recognition without verification, the company that made it (if it made false claims), those look more like the ones responsible.
They didn’t do due diligence. It was easily prevented by double checking everything
" ‘I was only following orders’ […] The refuge of scoundrels since the dawn of time. " - Patrick Ness
No, I’ve no idea who Patrick Ness is either, but it’s a quote from one of his works, and it happens to be true.
So the ones she’s suing. She likely can’t go after the software company because it’s very likely they just have like a confidence score and a legal thing that says “when you use this we’re just providing an estimate and possible match and you need to do your diligence.” But the fact the state/city/department has no policy that more corroborating evidence is required for an arrest / jail and that detective just blanket trusted the software without any other evidence means they should be the primary targets of the lawsuit. Additionally this is ripe for political candidates to take on, so I’m surprised she hasn’t gotten some politician using her as an example for more stringent policies in the use of facial recognition by law enforcement.