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Comment by sdan | Hacker News Reader

Given that he's suing for a billion already makes it a publicity stunt. Not sure why he feels Apple owes him a billion for a mistake on an automated system. If he sued for maybe somewhere in the thousands it would make a bit more sense, but at the end of the day, its a harmless offense by Apple.

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its a harmless offense by Apple

Given the way society has a tendency not to wait until a court proves someone guilty and defaults to a "no smoke without fire" assumption of guilt I'm not sure being falsely arrested is actually all that harmless. If this person ever applies for a job and is asked "Have you ever been arrested?" he may have to say "yes" (unless there's a way to expunge all records of the arrest, including any media coverage). That could have a material impact on his future.

I don’t think they can ask that, but it doesn’t take any mental gymnastics to imagine a false arrest leading to false incarceration if the accused can’t afford a good lawyer. Or even being fired from a low-end job when they miss some work because of the arrest. Could be 10-20k in damages right there between legal fees and missed work

A harmless offence by Apple? Consider that AI facial recognition is already known to have a bias which disproportionally affects people of colour [1]. Then consider that in the US the police also have documented bias against the same group [2]. This particular incident may have had a relatively small effect on this individual, but the potential for harm for this group of people when using this technology is increased by its use. That to my mind makes its use unacceptable for law enforcement, at least until this bias is addressed and corrected.

[1] https://phys.org/news/2019-02-aim-biased-ai-facial-recogniti... [2] https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/8/13/17938186/police-sho...

This is essentially corporate swatting that resulted in the victim being charged with felonies in multiple states.

A harmless offense? really?

People have been killed in SWAT'ing in the past. This isn't a far cry from that.

I wouldn't trust US police to make a peaceful arrest of anyone at this point. It's a potentially lethal encounter depending on how trigger happy these cops are.

This was the arrest of a suspected shoplifter. It's is a very far cry from swatting.

The scale of offense has no correlation to how the cops would respond during an arrest, a slight mis-understanding during encounter could lead to unintended consequences.

That said, this whole billion dollar is a good way to get PR and force Apple to settle which they will.

People shouldn't get large payouts because a reasonable action has a remote possibility of triggering unintended consequences, especially when those consequences don't actually occur. Apple gave the police evidence that pointed in the direction of this person. The police thought that evidence was sufficient to arrest him. The evidence turned out to be misleading, but in the vast majority of cases it would not have.

I'll be one of the first people to tell you that all cops are a hair trigger away from entering "asshole cop" mode but the nature of the crime definitively determines how they act. Arresting someone with an outstanding warrant for shoplifting/theft is going to be handled very differently than arresting someone who has a history of being involved in drug trafficking violence.

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