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https://www.productionai.institute/graph/events/evt-aiid-518

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Production AI Institute public record · AI Incident Database: New York Detective Misused Woody Harrelson's Face to Perform Face Recognition Search · observed 2023-04-18
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AI Incident Database: New York Detective Misused Woody Harrelson's Face to Perform Face Recognition Search

When the facial recognition search for a CVS theft suspect's face returned no useful matches due to the surveillance footage being obscured and highly pixelated, a New York City police detective continued the face search using Woody Harrelson's face allegedly due to his resemblance to the suspect's face, eventually leading to the arrest of an unknown victim.

AI Incident Database · Incident 518

Operator lens (medium): inspect D3 (data handling).

Confidence
78%
Sources
2
Entities
3
Detected
detected 1187d ago

Event summary

When the facial recognition search for a CVS theft suspect's face returned no useful matches due to the surveillance footage being obscured and highly pixelated, a New York City police detective continued the face search using Woody Harrelson's face allegedly due to his resemblance to the suspect's face, eventually leading to the arrest of an unknown victim.

D3

Linked entities

  • unknown

    organisation | 70%

  • new-york-police-department

    organisation | 70%

  • facial-identification-section

    organisation | 70%

Related graph edges

EdgeTypeConfidence
ent-aiid-unknown to ent-psf-d2maps to60%
ent-aiid-unknown to ent-psf-d2maps to60%
ent-aiid-unknown to ent-psf-d2maps to60%
ent-aiid-unknown to ent-psf-d6maps to60%
ent-aiid-unknown to ent-psf-d6maps to60%
ent-aiid-unknown to ent-psf-d6maps to60%
ent-aiid-unknown to ent-psf-d1maps to60%
ent-aiid-unknown to ent-psf-d1maps to60%
ent-aiid-unknown to ent-psf-d1maps to60%
ent-aiid-unknown to ent-psf-d2maps to60%
ent-aiid-unknown to ent-psf-d2maps to60%
ent-aiid-unknown to ent-psf-d2maps to60%

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Event dates

  • Happened 28 Apr 2017

  • Detected 18 Apr 2023

Sources

  • AI Incident Database - Incident 518

    secondary | checked 9 July 2026

    Open source
  • Garbage In, Garbage Out: Face Recognition on Flawed Data

    secondary | checked 18 Apr 2023

    Open source
Cite this record

"AI Incident Database: New York Detective Misused Woody Harrelson's Face to Perform Face Recognition Search." https://www.productionai.institute/graph/events/evt-aiid-518 (observed 2017-04-28; retrieved 2026-07-18). PAI.

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