NEW YORK, N.Y. — According to an ACLU report published April 14, 2026, Kimberlee Williams, an Oklahoma resident, was wrongly jailed after Maryland police relied on faulty facial recognition software that falsely identified her as the perpetrator of a bank robbery in a state she had never visited. According to the report, in June 2021, police in three Maryland counties “accused Ms. Williams of being a match to an unknown individual who had entered several bank branches in Maryland, impersonated account holders, and withdrawn thousands of dollars from their accounts.” The banks investigating the incident sent a picture of the unknown suspect to “a national listserv of police and private investigators called Crimedex. Someone on the listserv ran the image through facial recognition technology and sent back Ms. Williams’ name and photo as a purported match to the suspect.” According to the report, without any further research or oversight, county police obtained a warrant for Ms. Williams’ arrest. Further illustrating the lack of diligence, the detective applying for the arrest warrant falsely claimed that Ms. Williams had been identified as the suspect “and that the detective had confirmed the identification by visually comparing a photo of the suspect with an older photo of Ms. Williams. Because the facial recognition search had found an innocent person (Ms. Williams) who looked similar to the suspect—an inherent problem with the technology—the officers claimed verification was worthless.” According to the report, after Ms. Williams’ arrest, she was jailed in Montgomery County for six months and was only released in December 2021 when charges from two other counties were also dropped. According to the report, Kimberlee Williams is not the only person who has been falsely accused and jailed because of faulty facial recognition software. “We now know of 14 people across the country who