São Paulo’s “Smart Sampa” facial-recognition policing system, which scans roughly 40,000 street cameras against judicial databases, led to thousands of arrests in its first year, but more than 8% of those detained as fugitives were later released due to misidentification. Reported cases include an 80-year-old retiree wrongly held for hours after being confused with a rapist and a psychiatric patient handcuffed during therapy. Researchers also noted that racial identity data is missing for over half of those jailed by the system, making it difficult to assess bias.