Please help get the message to Congress: Face recognition is dangerous.

ACLU Supporter –

My name is Melissa Williams. By now, you may have heard about my husband, Robert.

This past January – on what should've been a normal Thursday – our lives changed out of nowhere: Police officers came to our home to arrest my husband.

They called me earlier that day, asking aggressively for Robert. On the phone, they referred to me as his "wife or baby mama." I was sure it had to be a prank, but a little while later, they were at our door. As soon as Robert returned home from work, they handcuffed him in front of our two confused and scared daughters and took him away.

We wouldn't know until much later that my husband was wrongfully arrested because of a face recognition program that matches faces against driver's license pictures. A computer said the image of another Black man might be him. The man looked nothing like him.

ACLU Supporter, I'm sharing our story because I don't want this to happen to anyone else. The face recognition software that was used against my husband puts us all at risk – whether at a protest or on a seemingly regular Thursday.

We need to tell our lawmakers this is not okay. Will you join me in urging Congress to stop funding and allowing the use of invasive surveillance so what happened to us doesn't happen to someone else?
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Face recognition has been found by our own government to be racially-biased and error-prone against people of color.

In custody, the police finally told Robert that he was suspected of "stealing watches." The evidence? Security footage they'd run through a face recognition program.

But the footage was clearly of someone else. Robert even held the photo to his face to show them, and said, "I hope you guys don't think all Black men look alike." He was still held in detention in a filthy and crowded cell, for a crime he didn't commit, for nearly 30 hours.

ACLU Supporter, none of this is right. With so many law enforcement agencies using face recognition, there must be many more stories like ours – people treated as guilty because of a flawed technology. I don't want another family to be hurt even worse. Or for my daughters to grow up in a world where police can target them simply for having a license, for existing.

I hope by telling our story more people can understand what's at risk. It happened to us and it could happen to you. Face recognition should not be in the hands of law enforcement. Maybe someday, after strict regulations are in place, it could be an investigative tool, but not in its current form.

Please, help me send this message to Congress today. Our taxpayer dollars shouldn't be used to harm us.
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Thank you for listening,

Melissa Williams
Wife of Robert Williams, ACLU client

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