Police in the US used facial recognition technology to arrest a man. The tech was wrong

The rise of interest in facial recognition comes as thinning police agencies lean on a proliferation of linked public cameras to fight crime, and as the algorithms improve. — Image by macrovector on Freepik

Technology has given police vast reach to compare the faces of criminal suspects against a trove of mug shots, driver's licenses, and even selfies plucked from social media.

But a recent attempt by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office to nab a high-end purse thief via facial recognition ended badly for a Georgia man who was jailed for almost a week over a false match, his lawyer says.