Reno PD faces lawsuit alleging systemic FRT-based wrongful arrests made without corroboration

A lawsuit filed against the Reno Police Department in Nevada alleges officers made thousands of unlawful arrests relying solely on facial recognition matches without corroboration. The amended complaint cites the case of a man arrested by Officer Jager after a casino FRT system flagged him, despite his ID documents not matching. Jager’s own deposition acknowledged the arrest was unlawful and that FRT matches required corroboration. Jager called his supervisor Sgt DeSantis, who instructed him to arrest anyway for identity confirmation via fingerprint matching. The plaintiff’s attorney described the failure to train officers as outrageous and characterised the practice as systemic. The case adds to a growing body of US civil litigation over FRT-driven wrongful arrests and is being watched by civil liberties organisations as a test of whether departments can be held liable for policies that treat FRT matches as sufficient probable cause.

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