Student sues Apple for $1 billion over false arrest linked to facial recognition tech

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 56
    Bah, Humbug!
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 22 of 56
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,801member
    JWSC said:
    macxpress said:
    $1 Billion? BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! He'll be lucky to get $1 Million. Shit, he'll be lucky to get $100,000. 
    Well, he’ll likely get something.  $1 billion?  Of course not.  But I’m sure he’ll be able to find good uses for $100,000, minus lawyer’s fees of course.

    I wouldn't be surprised if he gets absolutely nothing over this. This is just someone who knows Apple has over $270 Billion and thinks somehow they now deserve some of it because of a mistake. 
    jbdragonmacguiwatto_cobra
  • Reply 23 of 56
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    Seems like this is mainly the police at fault for not validating the information given to them properly.
    jbdragon
  • Reply 24 of 56
    jcs2305jcs2305 Posts: 1,336member
    larrya said:
    mlafferty said:
    There is less than no basis to his complaint: he will likely get nothing, including no settlement. His complaint should not be directed at Apple or the security firm, as they did nothing directly to facilitate his arrest. The arrest was the result of a presumably lawfully issued warrant, so his whining about the conduct of the police and courts will do no good. Hint: this is not a matter of false arrest. He should take responsibility for his loss of his temporary identification and find another way to snatch his "15 minutes of fame!"
    Let’s drag you out of bed at 5AM for a crime you didn’t commit, using an arrest warrant based on a picture that doesn’t look like you, and see if you don’t do a little “whining”.  
    I agree with you, but I don’t think that is the case here. 

    "He was forced to respond to multiple false allegations which led to severe stress and hardship,” Bah said in the complaint.

    I thought the the same as you as well. Then I see his hardship was responding to allegations hahahaha. I don’t think there was an actual arrest. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 25 of 56
    aknabiaknabi Posts: 211member
    larrya said:
    mlafferty said:
    There is less than no basis to his complaint: he will likely get nothing, including no settlement. His complaint should not be directed at Apple or the security firm, as they did nothing directly to facilitate his arrest. The arrest was the result of a presumably lawfully issued warrant, so his whining about the conduct of the police and courts will do no good. Hint: this is not a matter of false arrest. He should take responsibility for his loss of his temporary identification and find another way to snatch his "15 minutes of fame!"
    Let’s drag you out of bed at 5AM for a crime you didn’t commit, using an arrest warrant based on a picture that doesn’t look like you, and see if you don’t do a little “whining”.  
    This is an Apple fan site... It's nonsense when it impacts Apple, it's a serious issue when it's somebody else (don't know how many comments were made about MS/Samsung/etc calling them out, yet when it's Apple with the same issue then it's "nothing to see here. move along"... which is just saying "this might impact AAPL share price and my portfolio. Keep your heads in the sand".

    Apple should suck up to this kid and given him something more than fair... 100k and a sweet set of top-end gear would be fine. A billion is just to get press attention in order to create a incentive to settle more quickly
    ronn
  • Reply 26 of 56
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    larrya said:
    mlafferty said:
    There is less than no basis to his complaint: he will likely get nothing, including no settlement. His complaint should not be directed at Apple or the security firm, as they did nothing directly to facilitate his arrest. The arrest was the result of a presumably lawfully issued warrant, so his whining about the conduct of the police and courts will do no good. Hint: this is not a matter of false arrest. He should take responsibility for his loss of his temporary identification and find another way to snatch his "15 minutes of fame!"
    Let’s drag you out of bed at 5AM for a crime you didn’t commit, using an arrest warrant based on a picture that doesn’t look like you, and see if you don’t do a little “whining”.  
    Question remains... whom do you have the basis to whine about?  

    It’s the police who collect evidence and present to a judge.  Apple would have handed over to the police what they asked for; the in-store surveillance video and any other records of the public’s attendance at their store.  It’s then on the police to utilize that video and other records as evidence in an investigation.  So it’s a failed police investigation that led the police, not Apple, to seek a warrant and then go exercise that warrant.  But of course, it’s not so easy to sue the police or a judge, plus there’s deeper pockets to go after.

    This lawsuit is likely predicated on the calculation that embarrassment to Apple is worth more than an attempt to fight city hall.  As such, it’s baseless, but the best shot the kid and his lawyer has. 
    FWIW a few years ago Apple security made use of their own private security staffers augmented by off-duty police officers who might call in on-duty fellow policemen if the suspect was uncooperative and the situation warranted. Remember the prototype iPhone left in a bar fiasco?

    I would not assume that Apple simply handed over a few pics and asked the police to investigate. Apple seems perfectly capable of doing their own investigations and handing over a completed evidentiary file where the police only need to arrest the perps as suspects.  It would then have been up to the prosecutor's office and detectives whether they found the evidence supplied by Apple sufficient for prosecution.

    In this case IMO the police made an arrest based on Apple's seemingly solid claims and video evidence utilizing facial recognition tech as an assist, but the city prosecutors in concert with a followup police investigation found it lacking and dismissed it. People are often arrested before a proper and thorough investigation is done. You already knew that. Apple isn't like your neighbor calling the police because their motorbike was stolen and he suspects it was you.

    Likely scenario IMO was no police investigation was done before the student was arrested based purely on Apple's claims and evidence. 

    A $B tho? Really. ROTFL!
    Of course he can ask for anything in a lawsuit, even the absurd.  Perhaps $50K and an iPhone makes him go away, and that's only because he lawyered up. Otherwise he'd be lucky to get an acknowledgment.
    edited April 2019 ronnmuthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 27 of 56
    davidwdavidw Posts: 2,036member
    I'm not getting it. If Apple and/or law enforcement was using the name on his lost learners permit to identify him, what does facial recognition have to do with it? Even if the photo they associated with his lost learners permit, was not him and only resemble him. I assume they use the name on the learners permit to make the ID, even if they mistakenly used a photo of someone that might resemble him.

    Now if it was the other way around and Apple and/or law enforcement used a real photo of him, from a time he visited an Apple Store and mistakenly associated it with a learners permit of someone that committed a crime in the store. And then law enforcement used the photo of his face to arrest him, instead of the name on the learners permit, then there might be a case. But either way, only if he can prove that there was gross negligence or malice on Apple and/or law enforcement part.

    What if someone stole your car license plate to put on a similar car that was used in a store robbery and the police got store security video footage of the getaway car, showing the plate number? Plus you just happen to resemble the image of the getaway driver. Can you sue the store or the police when they come a knocking because they used the stolen plate to identify you as maybe being involved in the crime? Once they realized the mistake, when you explain to them about your stolen plate and they let you go, that's the end of it. Should be the same here.
    edited April 2019 radarthekat
  • Reply 28 of 56
    radarthekatradarthekat Posts: 3,842moderator
    gatorguy said:
    larrya said:
    mlafferty said:
    There is less than no basis to his complaint: he will likely get nothing, including no settlement. His complaint should not be directed at Apple or the security firm, as they did nothing directly to facilitate his arrest. The arrest was the result of a presumably lawfully issued warrant, so his whining about the conduct of the police and courts will do no good. Hint: this is not a matter of false arrest. He should take responsibility for his loss of his temporary identification and find another way to snatch his "15 minutes of fame!"
    Let’s drag you out of bed at 5AM for a crime you didn’t commit, using an arrest warrant based on a picture that doesn’t look like you, and see if you don’t do a little “whining”.  
    Question remains... whom do you have the basis to whine about?  

    It’s the police who collect evidence and present to a judge.  Apple would have handed over to the police what they asked for; the in-store surveillance video and any other records of the public’s attendance at their store.  It’s then on the police to utilize that video and other records as evidence in an investigation.  So it’s a failed police investigation that led the police, not Apple, to seek a warrant and then go exercise that warrant.  But of course, it’s not so easy to sue the police or a judge, plus there’s deeper pockets to go after.

    This lawsuit is likely predicated on the calculation that embarrassment to Apple is worth more than an attempt to fight city hall.  As such, it’s baseless, but the best shot the kid and his lawyer has. 
    FWIW a few years ago Apple security made use of their own private security staffers augmented by off-duty police officers who might call in on-duty fellow policemen if the suspect was uncooperative and the situation warranted. Remember the prototype iPhone left in a bar fiasco?

    I would not assume that Apple simply handed over a few pics and asked the police to investigate. Apple seems perfectly capable of doing their own investigations and handing over a completed evidentiary file where the police only need to arrest the perps as suspects.  It would then have been up to the prosecutor's office and detectives whether they found the evidence supplied by Apple sufficient for prosecution.

    In this case IMO the police made an arrest based on Apple's seemingly solid claims and video evidence utilizing facial recognition tech as an assist, but the city prosecutors in concert with a followup police investigation found it lacking and dismissed it. People are often arrested before a proper and thorough investigation is done. You already knew that. Apple isn't like your neighbor calling the police because their motorbike was stolen and he suspects it was you.

    Likely scenario IMO was no police investigation was done before the student was arrested based purely on Apple's claims and evidence. 

    A $B tho? Really. ROTFL!
    Of course he can ask for anything in a lawsuit, even the absurd.  Perhaps $50K and an iPhone makes him go away, and that's only because he lawyered up. Otherwise he'd be lucky to get an acknowledgment.
    In which case it still rests entirely on the police.  They could have contacted the guy and brought him in for questioning.  If they decided they had sufficient evidence to haul the guy out of bed, then that suggests they didn’t do a proper investigation.  In any event, even if “people are often arrested before a proper and thorough investigation is done” then that still falls on the police.  It’s their call and not Apple’s how an investigation and subsequent arrest is handled.  
    jbdragon
  • Reply 29 of 56
    radarthekatradarthekat Posts: 3,842moderator
    aknabi said:
    larrya said:
    mlafferty said:
    There is less than no basis to his complaint: he will likely get nothing, including no settlement. His complaint should not be directed at Apple or the security firm, as they did nothing directly to facilitate his arrest. The arrest was the result of a presumably lawfully issued warrant, so his whining about the conduct of the police and courts will do no good. Hint: this is not a matter of false arrest. He should take responsibility for his loss of his temporary identification and find another way to snatch his "15 minutes of fame!"
    Let’s drag you out of bed at 5AM for a crime you didn’t commit, using an arrest warrant based on a picture that doesn’t look like you, and see if you don’t do a little “whining”.  
    This is an Apple fan site... It's nonsense when it impacts Apple, it's a serious issue when it's somebody else (don't know how many comments were made about MS/Samsung/etc calling them out, yet when it's Apple with the same issue then it's "nothing to see here. move along"... which is just saying "this might impact AAPL share price and my portfolio. Keep your heads in the sand".

    Apple should suck up to this kid and given him something more than fair... 100k and a sweet set of top-end gear would be fine. A billion is just to get press attention in order to create a incentive to settle more quickly
    Wait, you’re saying this exact situation occurred with Microsoft and commenters here treated it as a serious issue?  That’s strange; as a moderator I’d think I’ve have seen that.  
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 30 of 56
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    It’s too bad things like this get swept under the rug. We’ll probably never hear about this again, just this sensational headline. Any settlement will most likely be confidential. If you Google the story it’s all over the Internet which was the intent of the headline. Bashing Apple is the easiest way to get looks and clicks.
    edited April 2019
  • Reply 31 of 56
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    davidw said:
    I'm not getting it.
    There’s nothing to “get”. Anybody can sue Apple for any reason with the expectation of getting some money out of it, frivolous or not. It would probably cost Apple more than one of its gunslinging lawyer’s salary to defend itself. So give the kid and his lawyer a few $K and be done with it. A friend of mine was on a jury in a case of personal injury. The defense was able to prove that the plaintiff lied through her teeth about her supposed injury. Several jury members wanted to give her some money anyway for her trouble. My friend said they gave her $2K just so they could get it over with instead of arguing about it.
    randominternetperson
  • Reply 32 of 56
    sirozha said:
    Thanks for telling us how to rob an Apple store. 
    Like you needed help.
    It’s a glass box with devices laying on tables.

    Robbing the store is easy, getting anything from what you steal is a different matter. All of the devices get bricked, plus if you are stupid enough, as soon as you try to erase it and connect to the internet it will ping your location. 

    Only way the fence the goods is to sell them to some poor unsuspecting fool who doesn’t check to see if activation lock is turned off. If you see an Apple device being sold way too cheap, be very wary of getting ripped off or robbed yourself. 
    Yeah... Every time I’ve sold a device with a way of pinging home (cell phone, iMac, iPad, etc.), I’ve asked to meet the person at the store for both of our protection. The buyer gets to know that their purchase was legitimate, and I get to know that the ownership has transferred, so if they do something stupid, I’m not the ones the cops look at.
    hammeroftruth
  • Reply 33 of 56
    NotsofastNotsofast Posts: 450member
    As many lawsuits are, this is a frivolous lawsuit, likely filed for the publicity for the lawyer and in the hope that Apple will throw some money their way.  The fact is that the arrest was made by a law enforcement agency, not Apple.  That arrest had to be made with probable cause, not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and going on what we have in this article, probable cause was likely formed when Apple gave the cops the ID the criminal had, and copies of the photos of the criminal making the purchase.

    The suspect probably looks similar to the victim and when the cops compared the victims driver's license photo to the store photographs, and added that to the ID used, bingo!, you have probable cause.  Again, it doesn't mean you're guilty, just that the cops had probable cause to make an arrest.   

    And, though claimed, it is highly unlikely that there was facial recognition used.  Instead, Apple undoubtedly has security cameras everywhere in their stores and they simply had a photograph of the suspect making the purchase.
  • Reply 34 of 56
    spice-boyspice-boy Posts: 1,450member
    The Apple defenders are out in force today. The point of this story shows how bad facial recognition is and if your life depended on it you might think differently. 
    chemenginronn
  • Reply 35 of 56
    jbdragonjbdragon Posts: 2,305member
    macxpress said:
    $1 Billion? BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! He'll be lucky to get $1 Million. Shit, he'll be lucky to get $100,000. 
    When I see this, I'm thinking of Dr. Evil.  He starts out Demanding 1 Million Dollars, and then changes it to 1 Billion dollars.  1 million is not enough these days for a criminal with Inflation.  

    I don't see much of a case here.  Apple gave the police what Info they had.  Apple was handed a false ID.  That's not their fault.   Apple didn't get the warrant.  The police and the court thought the Info was all good.   Is the police so last these days they don't do any work themselves?  In any case, is was the police banging on the door at 5am.   Apple was the victim.  Apple gave the police what info they had.  Anything after that is out of Apple's hands.  The police and court though it was all valid and issued the warrant.   All things Apple had nothing to do with.

    If it was Apple Security Barging in at 5am, he might have a case. Not for 1 BILLION, but for something.  But it wasn't Apple, it was the police!!!    This lawsuit should be thrown out.  There's no case here.  
  • Reply 36 of 56
    jdgazjdgaz Posts: 403member
    Johan42 said:
    Sure, sue, but for 1 billion dollars? This kid is crazy.
    Thats what I though of the lady who sued McDonalds because the coffee cup she put between her legs burned her private parts. Thought she was crazy, but she won.
    chemenginJWSC
  • Reply 37 of 56
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    Is the implication here that Apple scanned the stolen ID to get a face on file, and then facial recognition identified the user of the stolen ID on a later date and linked a crime back to the file?  Does Apple do that?

    If so, I guess that's news.
    edited April 2019
  • Reply 38 of 56
    sflocal said:
    Kid’s gonna lose anyway.  I want to know more about this facial recognition stuff.  Is Apple using this on people that enter their stores?  

    Are we talking “Minority Report”?
    I don't know why the AI article didn't bring this from the original article, but here it is:

    "Apple said on Tuesday it doesn’t use facial recognition in its stores."

    gatorguyJWSChammeroftruth
  • Reply 39 of 56
    DAalsethDAalseth Posts: 2,783member
    Apple has denied it USES facial recognition in any of its stores. 
    https://www.macobserver.com/news/apple-doesnt-use-facial-recognition/
  • Reply 40 of 56
    davidwdavidw Posts: 2,036member
    jdgaz said:
    Johan42 said:
    Sure, sue, but for 1 billion dollars? This kid is crazy.
    Thats what I though of the lady who sued McDonalds because the coffee cup she put between her legs burned her private parts. Thought she was crazy, but she won.
    More to that case than that. It seems that McDonalds had the habit of overheating their coffee by more than 10 degrees, so that customers will still have a hot cup of coffee when they got around to drinking it, maybe 10 or 15 minutes later on a take out. The lady did not know this when she placed the cup of coffee between her legs, as it was hard to judge how hot the coffee is when in a styrofoam cup. 

    It was proven that Mcdonalds was negligent by heating their coffee to an unsafe temperature and thus she was awarded damages, even if those damages may seem excessive. If McDonalds had just served their coffee at a normal drinking temperature, she most likely would not have won her case or maybe just ended up having Mcdonalds paying for her dry cleaning bill. 

    Here, even if Apple or the security company made a mistake in identifying this victim, it's yet to be proven and maybe can not be proven, that Apple or the security company was negligent or acted out of malice, when they mistakenly identified him as the suspect. But AFAIK, the victim was never charged with any crimes.  

    Even then, the crazy part of this suit is the $1B.

    edited April 2019
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