Angela Lipps, a 50-year-old from Tennessee, has filed a lawsuit seeking $10 million in damages from the city of Fargo, North Dakota. The suit alleges that Fargo police improperly relied on an AI system to identify her as a suspect, despite a lack of valid basis.
Lipps was arrested by US marshals, who approached her home in Tennessee with weapons drawn. At the time, she was looking after four children belonging to a neighbour. A mother of three and grandmother of five, she had spent most of her life in middle Tennessee. She was held in county jail, where she spent nearly four months without bail, awaiting extradition to North Dakota. She was held for a further two months there. In late October, authorities transferred her to North Dakota — the first time she had boarded a plane. She was charged with four counts of unauthorized use of personal identification data and four counts of theft. The charges were eventually dropped, and she was released on Christmas Eve.
Her attorney, Jay Greenwood, submitted bank records proving that Lipps was in Tennessee at the time of the fraud in Fargo. The attorney, Eric Rice, told local media that the $10 million figure "is a significant number, but reflects the concrete harm suffered by Angela". A spokesperson for the city of Fargo said the city would not comment on ongoing litigation. The lawsuit names the city of Fargo and detective Lucas Heck as defendants, stating that Heck applied for a warrant for her arrest.
The suit alleges that Lipps "endured traumatic conditions in jail". It states that she feared she would not know when she would be released or if she would ultimately be wrongly convicted and imprisoned for years. It notes that she missed family birthdays, spent her own birthday in prison, separated from her family, and missed holidays with loved ones, including Thanksgiving and Christmas. During her detention, the suit claims, she was denied basic care, such as medication and a prosthesis. After being released, she learned she had lost her apartment, car, and personal belongings. The experience, it is stated, left her with "lasting trauma that can be mitigated but never erased".
The suit describes how a police investigator in western Fargo used AI face recognition software to identify the suspect in a bank fraud case. The software returned a photo of Angela Lipps from social media as a potential match, which was forwarded to Heck. The suit alleges that the source of the identification was a fake ID used by a female suspect captured on surveillance footage. According to the suit, Angela Lipps did not resemble the female suspect and had never been to North Dakota. It is alleged that Heck falsely represented that the face recognition system had identified Lipps, that he failed to conduct further investigation or establish sufficient probable cause, yet still applied for a warrant.
Lipps alleges she was unlawfully arrested and detained, and improperly prosecuted. She further claims that the Fargo Police Department (FPD) lacked policies, training, and oversight regarding the use of face recognition technology by officers. The suit states: "They knew that AI face recognition technology should not be used as the sole basis for extraditing and charging a person." It adds: "Yet they ignored these issues and were indifferent to the harm caused to innocent people like Lipps by their actions." The suit notes that Lipps hopes her case will prompt police to act with due care and consider the harm their actions may cause to the wrongly accused. The suit further states: "The FPD was aware that the lack of oversight of a police officer using face recognition in an investigation could result in the unlawful detention and prosecution of a subject." It adds: "Despite being aware of this risk, the FPD refused to oversee the use of face recognition technology by its officers." The suit states that the "Fargo Police Department (FPD) and its agents refused to accept responsibility or apologize to Lipbs despite multiple requests to do so", and seeks to "make right what has been broken" following her wrongful arrest, holding the FPD accountable.
