Robert Dillon filed a lawsuit on Wednesday alleging that Florida police wrongfully arrested him based on an error-prone facial recognition match. The suit claims officers ignored evidence that cleared him of attempting to lure a child.
The lawsuit, filed in US District Court for the Middle District of Florida, names the City of Jacksonville Beach, Jacksonville Beach Police Corporal Scott O’Connell, and other officials as defendants. Dillon, a 52-year-old Fort Myers resident, was arrested in August 2024 after a system called FACES flagged him as a 93 percent match to a suspect from low-quality surveillance footage at a Jacksonville Beach McDonald’s. Dillon lives more than 300 miles from the scene and had never visited the area, according to the complaint. Police searches of license plate databases found no record of his vehicles nearby, but officers omitted this and other exculpatory details from the warrant affidavit. The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents Dillon, stated that he is one of 15 known people in the United States subjected to such an arrest. Charges were dropped after more than two months, but the suit seeks damages and policy changes on facial recognition use. The incident occurred in November 2023. Dillon described the technology as “100 percent inaccurate” and said he still faces public questions about the case.
