A murder case in Cleveland, Ohio, could collapse because the city’s police relied on AI-based facial recognition software to obtain a search warrant.
This despite a specific warning from the provider of that artificial intelligence – our old friends Clearview AI – that results from its facial recognition search software should not be “used as admissible evidence in a court of law or any court filing.”
Nor should it be used for the sole basis for an arrest because it may not be accurate, according to the developer.
As reported by The Cleveland Plain Dealer and associated website Cleveland.com, police investigating the killing of Blake Story on February 14, 2024, obtained video surveillance that captured the victim being shot by an unidentified person.
The killer’s face isn’t visible in the February 14 footage, so Clearview couldn’t identify them.
Undeterred, the cops used Clearview’s facial recognition to identify a person in separate video surveillance captured days later on February 20, 2024. The US city’s police themselves figured that person, on the basis of his clothing and the way he walked, may be the shooter in the February 14 footage, and obtained a search warrant against the computer-identified man.
The search warrant, executed at the home of the suspect’s girlfriend, resulted in the police saying they found a gun, one officers believe is the murder weapon. Other evidence, including clothing and statements, were obtained.
But on January 9, 2025, the judge presiding over the case in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, granted the defense’s motion to exclude the evidence for failing to adequately disclose investigation details to the court, such as the use of Clearview AI’s facial recognition.
In his motion to suppress, defense attorney Brian M. Fallon cited a police statement that noted officers asked the Northeast Ohio Regional Fusion Center, an interagency law enforcement intelligence group, to identify someone in the February 20 surveillance video so that his address could be obtained, and the center produced a report doing just that: Identifying the person in the supplied footage albeit not the footage of the actual murder.
Not only that but Fallon’s filing says the identification was achieved using AI with warning labels all over it: “The report from the Fusion center is from Clearview AI, an artificial intelligence facial recognition software company. This company has such faith in its software that it prints the following on every page of its report…” That paragraph being:
The motion goes on to cite a more extensive disclaimer on Clearview AI’s website, which includes: “Clearview makes no guarantees as to the accuracy of its search-identification software.”
In a phone call with The Register, Fallon pointed to the company’s disclaimer and its specific prohibition on using the results of its software as evidence in court of law.
“That kind of says it all,” he said, adding that the wording of the police affidavit fails to make clear that the video from which the suspect was identified was captured six days after the video that captured the murder and doesn’t establish that the defendant identified by Clearview’s software in the latter video appeared in the recording of the killing.
The police affidavit links the defendant identified by Clearview AI in the February 20 video to the unidentified suspect in the February 14 video of the killing by noting the defendant has “the same build, hair style, clothing, and walking characteristics as observed on the suspect on February 14, 2024.”
The Cleveland Police Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. According to The Cleveland Plain Dealer, a country prosecutor argued during the motion hearing that police did not base their case solely on AI.