Reason: ACLU Sues After Facial Recognition Falsely Identifies Florida Man as a Child Abductor
Police arrested a man in Florida for attempted child abduction in a town he had never visited, and the only evidence linking him to the crime was an AI facial recognition hit. Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), he is now suing the officers and agencies who put him through it.
In November 2023, police in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, responded to a call about an attempted child abduction at a McDonald’s. Witnesses said an adult man allegedly tried to get the child, identified as a girl under 12 years old, to leave the restaurant with him. According to a police report, facial recognition software concluded with 93 percent confidence that the suspect was Robert Dillon.
In August 2024, Deputies arrested Dillon at his home in Fort Myers, Florida—hundreds of miles away, at the opposite end of the state. “Are you shitting me, man?” Dillon asked the arresting deputy. “I haven’t been out of Fort Myers in two years.”
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He was arrested, forced to hire an attorney, and publicly humiliated for a crime in a county he has never even visited—all because an AI-powered surveillance state falsely identified him.
For months, he was treated as undeniably guilty in the court of public opinion, with that stigma likely to linger forever. It’s shocking he didn’t lose his job from the accusations alone. The damage will follow him for life.
This case reveals just how dangerously out of control the surveillance state and sex offender panic have become. He is incredibly fortunate he could prove his innocence. Imagine if he had been home alone—he would almost certainly be in prison right now. It’s only going to get worse.
I’ve heard it before where concerns are raised for the safety of one falsely accused of a sex offence and then completely dismissed for those of us who were correctly accused.
The sex offence registry is either inherently dangerous or it is not. The consortium of they shouldn’t be allowed to report a thing as dangerous only when it affects those falsely accused unless we as a society agree that the inherent dangerousness of the registry is acceptable. And if we do, shouldn’t we then agree that an inherently dangerous policy should then be considered a punishment as punishments often harbor acceptably dangerous consequences to an offender?
Massive predator sting in Marion County. Been all over the news
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2026/06/11/marion-county-sheriff-state-officials-to-unveil-details-of-record-breaking-child-predator-sting/
“These predators simply found us. They found our profiles. They solicited us. The only thing that we did is we joined whatever application, whatever website,” Woods said.
Let me guess – those profiles were on some kid site, right? Or if on an adult meetup site/app, the ad clearly stated that the profile was of a 13 -15 kid?
I am so glad I have 0, Nine, Nunca, did i mention Zero social Media. My internet Identifiers consists of work stuff, eBay, and a game i used to play years ago that they cant figure out how to close. two emails, work and personal, two phone numbers work and cell. That is, it. Same cars, Same house Same Phone number for over 9 years on the Cars and over 23 for the other two.
There is something to said about being boring. LOL I go to the same places, order the same thing at the restaurants. It’s crazy. When they ask has anything changed, I say nope. I sign they print I leave. And I am still full of Anxiety every time i go in.
So McDonald’s just told on themselves by secretly using AI on their customers. Just the other day, I read an article about how they’re test-bedding an “AI-assisted drive-thru” in some areas before a national roll-out. I’m sure the public won’t be the wiser about facial-rec being run on the driver, their kids, dog and granny while picking up a Happy Meal, right?
This is just the next level of “see something, say something” mantra that cops love to push on the public. This guy the cops picked up just proves everything is piped in to a central database that is acessed by an Sheriff’s office nationwide.
Sloppy police work. The article made no mention of whether the falsely accused had any prior record. I would like to think that not only does this guy win his case but people got fired for this.
And it will only get worse, unfortunately. As the technology becomes more widespread, cases like this will occur more frequently.