The receipts
When it goes wrong.
The Registry is what Detroit watches with. This is what has gone wrong with the same systems — 5 here at home and more in cities running the very tools on the table. Every incident is linked to its source.
Showing 13 of 13 documented incidents
Nearly a year in jail on a gunshot alert — then a $500K payout
Michael Williams spent close to a year in jail on a murder charge built largely on a ShotSpotter alert before it was dropped. Chicago agreed to pay him about $500,000.
Source: WTTW ↗Detroit's gunshot-detection contracts ruled unlawful
A Michigan appeals court found that Detroit's ShotSpotter contracts were approved in violation of the city's own surveillance-oversight ordinance.
Source: BridgeDetroit ↗4,000+ camera searches run for ICE — with no ICE contract
Local police ran more than 4,000 searches of Flock's nationwide plate-reader network on behalf of ICE, even though ICE had no formal contract with the company.
Source: 404 Media ↗An abortion search exposed a plate-reader data breach
An Illinois audit found federal agents had accessed protected plate-reader data — an audit triggered when Texas police searched the network for a woman who had left the state for an abortion.
Source: Illinois Secretary of State ↗An app to scan a plate and pull billions of records — shown to ICE
ICE was shown a phone app — powered by Motorola and Thomson Reuters data — that lets an agent scan a license plate and pull up billions of records of where that car has been, enriched with marriage, voter, and credit data.
Source: 404 Media ↗A mother and toddler detained over a one-digit misread
A Flock plate reader misread a single character and flagged the wrong car as stolen. Detroit police detained a mother and her toddler. The city agreed to pay $35,000. The cameras stayed up.
Source: Deadline Detroit ↗Three wrongful arrests, all of Black residents
Detroit's face-recognition system has been linked to at least three wrongful arrests — every person misidentified was Black. A 2024 settlement now limits how the department can use it.
Source: CNN ↗Axon's AI ethics board quit over a Taser drone
Nine of the twelve members of Axon's own AI ethics board resigned after the company proposed a Taser-equipped drone.
Source: NPR ↗89% of gunshot alerts found no gun crime
A study of Chicago's gunshot-detection system found 89% of alerts turned up no evidence of a gun crime. One dead-end alert sent the officer who killed 13-year-old Adam Toledo.
Source: MacArthur Justice Center ↗Robert Williams: the first known wrongful arrest by face recognition
Detroit police arrested Robert Williams in front of his wife and daughters after DataWorks face-matching software misidentified him. He is believed to be the first person in the U.S. wrongfully arrested because of the technology.
Source: ACLU · Williams v. Detroit ↗A woman and four children held at gunpoint over a plate-reader hit
Aurora, Colorado police drew guns on a woman and four children, ages 6 to 17, after a plate-reader hit matched a stolen vehicle on a different state's plate. The city later settled.
Source: CBS News ↗Clearview AI scraped billions of faces — then leaked its client list
Clearview AI scraped billions of photos from the web without consent, then had its entire client list stolen, revealing ICE, police departments, and retailers among its users.
Source: Engadget ↗$622K on a cell-site simulator, used to sweep up bystanders
Detroit police spent about $622,000 on a cell-site simulator (a 'Stingray') that mimics a cell tower, and deployed it at least 66 times in ten months — collecting the phone data of anyone nearby, not just targets.
Source: Truthout ↗Show up when it counts
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