Accused of bank fraud by a facial recognition software using artificial intelligence, Angela Lipps, 50, spent five months in prison in Tennessee and then in North Dakota. She was released at the end of last December.
Her ordeal lasted at least five months. A 50-year-old American spent long months in detention after being suspected of being involved in a bank fraud case by a facial recognition software using artificial intelligence (AI).
To understand, let’s go back eight months, to July 2025. Angela Lipps, a mother of three children and grandmother of five grandchildren, was arrested in the state of Tennessee for a series of bank frauds committed over 1,500 km away from her, in North Dakota.
Several weeks later, an arrest warrant was issued against her. According to the West Fargo police, the Clearview AI facial recognition system identified the fifty-year-old as a “potential suspect” after comparing a photo of a fake ID used in the frauds to those found on the Internet and social networks.
If Police Chief Dave Zibolski assured CNN that he had conducted “additional independent investigation steps from AI” before submitting his report to the Cass County State Attorney’s Office, he nevertheless acknowledged that the Clearview AI system was “part of the problem”. After admitting to “some errors” in their process, Dave Zibolski stated that the use of the software was now prohibited.
Released the day before Christmas Eve
However, these errors cost Angela Lipps five months of freedom, as she first spent over three months in a Tennessee prison before being transferred to Fargo, North Dakota. “It was the first time I had taken a plane,” wrote Angela Lipps on the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe. “I was handcuffed and tied with a belt, then I was escorted through the airport in front of people. I was terrified, exhausted, and humiliated.”
Finally, on the day before Christmas Eve, last December, the grandmother was released. Her lawyer had then searched for and produced bank statements showing that the American was in Tennessee at the time of the alleged events. On December 23, the Fargo detective, prosecutor, and judge “agreed mutually to close the case to allow the investigation to continue”.
But the fifty-year-old, despite being released, is not out of trouble. Angela Lipps lost her home, and all her belongings were seized, as she claims on the GoFundMe platform. “I am no longer the same woman,” she writes. To date, around $71,000 has been raised on the fund. On their side, her attorneys denounce a botched investigation. “The trauma, loss of freedom, and damage to reputation are not easily repaired,” they lament on CNN.
