Experts warn alleged AI misidentifications are increasingly leading to wrongful arrests as police adopt new technology
A Tennessee grandmother has filed a lawsuit against a North Dakota city and police department, accusing officials of wrongfully detaining her for nearly six months after allegedly misusing artificial intelligence facial recognition technology to investigate a bank theft case.
Angela Lipps, now 50, of Elizabethton, Tennessee, said she was caring for her neighbor’s four young children when police showed up at the home and arrested her at gunpoint in July 2025.
The complaint, filed Sept. 15, 2026, alleges that authorities relied exclusively on a flawed AI facial recognition match to extradite Lipps from Tennessee to North Dakota, despite her having no connection to the crime or the state.
Experts on police technology told Fox News Digital that the case is among more than a dozen known instances involving alleged police mishandling of facial recognition technology.
“I sat in a county jail in Tennessee for 108 days,” Lipps said in a GoFundMe post. “They said I was fugitive from justice. I had no bail. No one interviewed me. I just sat and waited.”