The New Orleans City Council is considering Ordinance 35,137 that would authorize the continued use of the live facial recognition system implemented by Project NOLA. Project NOLA, a non-profit organization, runs a centralized surveillance system that has equipped New Orleans with more than 200 facial recognition cameras at various establishments and residential locations. The program, run by a former officer, was until recently, sending law enforcement live, real time alerts of people identified by facial recognition from predetermined lists. The use of Project NOLA’s live facial recognition system by the New Orleans police was a clear violation of a preexisting 2022 city council ordinance that limited the use of facial recognition technology to searches involving specific cases with violent crime. The 2022 ordinance did not allow for the use of live facial recognition or the mass deployment of the technology. Despite the police’s clear violation of the ordinance, the New Orleans City Council is considering a new ordinance to sanction the mass deployment of live facial recognition.
The possibility that New Orleans will officially implement mass surveillance via facial recognition would be an about-face that would see New Orleans go from a 2020 ordinance that rightly banned facial recognition because of the heightened risk of false positives for Black people to embracing a dystopian future of a dragnet facial recognition surveillance that treats everyone as a suspect. This opens the door to a level of intrusion that we’ve only seen in authoritarian governments. The intrusion will not stop at our faces, Project NOLA can not only track faces, but also clothing, cars, and bikes. The kind of surveillance presents a real threat to our privacy, civil liberties, and undermines our democratic values.
The use of live FRT surveillance would make everyone a suspect and go against democratic values. This type of mass surveillance would undermine individual freedoms and citizens’ ability to freely engage in social and political activity. The European Court of Human Rights unanimously concluded that highly intrusive technology (e.g. real-time dragnet facial recognition surveillance) is incompatible with the ideals and values of a democratic society governed by the rule of law. Mass deployment of live facial recognition suppresses dissent and disproportionally targets marginalized groups.
Sanctioning the indiscriminate use of live facial recognition would destroy the previous guardrails around this technology and would be the first major American city to specifically allow live facial recognition.
What the fuck kind of non-profit is that? And why don’t they name the officer? Oh, I guess he likes his privacy. ACAB.
Bryan Lagarde.
Have fun!
It’s shady as fuck and part of a very long and convoluted story. This guy’s private surveillance company popped up in New Orleans in the middle of a secret partnership with Palantir. So after Palantir “left” the city in a bit of a scandal, this guy’s surveillance company helped continue elements of what started under Palantir.
It’s very confusing bc as of the city council meeting on 6/30, NOPD said they wanted the ordinance to use facial recognition tech in their own crime cameras (separate from ProjectNola).
Yesterday was supposed to be the day the ordinance was discussed, but the city council meeting was just cancelled with no notification and no information provided about why.
City council was supposed to vote next week for or against the ordinance, but someone told me the vote has apparently also been cancelled. When I asked though they didn’t say how they know that, so I have no idea what is actually going on with the ordinance and city council.
NOPD argued on 6/30 that the ability to use real time facial recognition tracking in their system would at least give them more control bc they knew that ProjectNola was already working with the state police and ICE.
Except as of today, a state law kicks in and it becomes illegal for police to refuse a federal immigration order or “hinder” (yes it’s definitely intentionally vague what exactly that means) federal immigration.
There also seems to be contradicting evidence about how separate the city’s own real time crime camera program and ProjectNola are.
Main points:
• NOPD said on 6/30 that they believed ProjectNola and state police were already using this tracking tech to help ICE. ProjectNola seems to be denying this.
• Yesterday, the ordinance discussion and entire city council meeting was apparently cancelled with no notification to the public.
• As of today an insane new state law kicks in to try and force law enforcement to ignore a federal consent decree and join the state police and other state agencies in their partnership with ICE