Tennessee grandmother jailed after AI facial recognition error links her to fraud

[Anonymous]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/12/tennessee-grandmother-ai-fraud

North Dakota police used AI to match her face to video of a woman who used fake military ID to withdraw large amounts of money from 3 banks in ND and MN. She was arrested in Tennessee (for some reaosn, by US Marshals even though this was a state case), based on a warrant issued by a ND who found the AI match to be probable cause. She refused extradition so it was months before she was finally taken to ND. There she had a PD who found bank records confirmed she was in Tennessee the whole time (woman had never flown in a plane before). Then she was released, by then it was December, she had no winter clothing or money. Her lawyer and a local nonprofit helped her get a hotel room for one night and transportation back to Tennessee.

Apparently they used the bank images--none of which are full front face images--to look for possible matches among millions of photos from drivers licenses, social media, etc and came up with this woman. No further investigation was conducted.

[Anonymous]

This sounds more like old fashioned bad policing than a facial recognition problem.

[Anonymous]

Lipps is now back home but says the experience has had lasting consequences. While jailed and unable to pay bills, Lipps lost her home, her car and her dog, she said. She also told WDAY News no one from the Fargo police department had apologized.

She lost her house and her car (and dog). It sounds like she was self employed as a babysitter - I'm sure she's lost those clients as well as the ability to earn any money right now, with no house.

Is there any recourse for her for this mistaken arrest?

[Anonymous]

I'm confused about procedure though.

Don't you need more evidence than a single photo to hold a person more than 24 hours as a suspect in a crime?

[Anonymous]

I think government employees should be sued for gross incompetence and fired. Their half-assed investigation ruined a woman's life.

I'm also embarrassed for the US Marshals. They should have a higher standard for warrants, even on task forces.

[Anonymous]

How was she held that long without a bond to begin with??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How was she held that long without a bond to begin with??

Quoting myself..a different article says she was held in a TN jail for 4 months waiting to be picked up by ND. I’m not a lawyer, but I think the time limit to pick up a wanted person once you’re notified of arrest is less than 4 months…

[Anonymous]

Law enforcement in America has proven over and over and over to have too much power.

This story is horrifying and unacceptable. The reason the idiots in North Dakota pursued this woman, without carefully investigating first, is because:

#1 - they can, and
#2 - no repercussions for them.

The U.S. has a lot of serious problems right now. One of the big problems is out-of-control law enforcement.

We really need to re-think oversight of law enforcement in America.

[Anonymous]

And, due to the training data, AI facial recognition has been found to be most accurate with white men and less accurate with women and people of color, with an interaction effect — so the least accurate with women of color. So police actions and decisions are being based on inaccurate and biased data.

What happened to the woman is horrifying— and was totally preventable.

[Anonymous]

terrible and this is just the beginning. Stupid people relying on AI.

[Anonymous]

thats so messed up I hope she sues the f out of all of them.

[Anonymous]

This is terrible, and I hope this woman does/is able to sue, not because she will recover anything but because the flaws in the "justice" system need to be widely exposed.

And easy fix going forward is to disallow AI-derived information as a basis for an arrest or search warrant until the accuracy of the particular model used, with the particular data used, is proven to be accurate at a 90 or 95% or better rate.

[Anonymous]

Odd that someone was able to find enough money to hold a US citizen in jail for four months on a detainer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:thats so messed up I hope she sues the f out of all of them.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How was she held that long without a bond to begin with??

Quoting myself..a different article says she was held in a TN jail for 4 months waiting to be picked up by ND. I’m not a lawyer, but I think the time limit to pick up a wanted person once you’re notified of arrest is less than 4 months…

Tennessee also jailed a man for months for posting a comment about Charlie Kirk on social media.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/17/politics/retired-cop-jailed-over-charlie-kirk-meme