New Orleans City Council Considers Ordinance To Adopt Real-Time Facial Recognition Technology

America is slipping steadily down the slippery slope to a surveillance state.

The New Orleans City Council is considering an ordinance that would allow the city's police department, in the name of fighting crime, to use real-time facial recognition technology to find and track people as they move about the city. As The Washington Post reported last month, New Orleans police had already been secretly receiving real-time facial recognition notifications via a private surveillance camera network operated by Project NOLA.

Reason's Autumn Billings noted back in May that use of these automatic alerts may have violated an earlier city ordinance meant to protect the public's privacy from a generalized surveillance tool and prevent wrongful arrests due to software errors. "This is the first known time an American police department has relied on live facial recognition technology cameras at scale, and is a radical and dangerous escalation of the power to surveil people as we go about our daily lives," warned the American Civil Liberties Union in the wake of the Post's revelations. Undeterred by these concerns, the proposed city ordinance would sweep those protections away and make it legal for the New Orleans Police Department to use real-time facial recognition notifications.

The police would activate real-time surveillance by uploading an image of a suspicious person into the facial recognition system. The system scans the faces of all citizens as they walk past the video camera network, seeking to identify and then track the person of interest. Of course, if the police can track criminals, they can track you too. But what's the big deal? After all, as Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels purportedly observed, "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."

To be sure, the ordinance, as currently written, would allow the police to only "use facial recognition technology while investigating crimes and missing persons cases," writes StateScoop. "It would not be permitted for proactive policing, and a facial recognition match alone will not be regarded as enough evidence to establish probable cause, and therefore cannot be used as the sole reason for an arrest."

This means the local police would be prohibited from using real-time facial recognition to identify people seeking to procure an abortion, or engage in same-sex intimacy, or determine immigration status. Of course, these protections could be overturned just as easily as the earlier prohibitions on the police use of real-time facial recognition are about to be.

"In the coming years, both the federal government and some state governments may intensify surveillance and data collection efforts, targeting immigrants, punishing those involved in seeking or providing abortion services, and cracking down on gender-affirming healthcare," notes Daniel Solove, a George Washington University law professor.

In fact, this is already happening. As 404 Media reports, some Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are using the Mobile Fortify App that provides them with real-time biometric identity verification capabilities utilizing facial images captured by the camera on an ICE-issued cell phone. This point-and-shoot smartphone application can identify people using images repurposed from those collected for other objectives by Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security.

And even if you are currently unconcerned about pervasive government surveillance of these activities, do you want the police to know what religious services you attend; where your therapist's office is; what bars you stop by late nights; with whom you meet at political rallies; your attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings; or your clandestine dates with lovers?

"Obscurity in public places is a key component of freedom," argues Solove. "Living under the constant watchful eye places us in an Orwellian world where Big Brother is always observing. Even if it does not directly chill activities such as reading or protesting, it can blunt what is said or done. It adds an element of fear; and it also enables for greater government control. Public surveillance makes people feel less free; it impedes their free expression of selfhood."

Some lawmakers have tried to slow the march toward the pervasive real-time government surveillance of Americans. In 2023, Sen. Ed Markey (D–Mass.) introduced the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act, which have made it "unlawful for any Federal agency or Federal official, in an official capacity, to acquire, possess, access, or use in the United States (1) any biometric surveillance system; or (2) information derived from a biometric surveillance system operated by another entity."

In the meantime, America is slipping steadily down the slippery slope to a surveillance state.

Comments

[Uncle Jay]

Facial recognition is a good idea in places that get robbed, like banks, convenient stores and perhaps even retail shops, but the decision to plant cameras with facial recognition should be left to private ownership, not the city fathers, and having city-wide surveillance cameras everywhere is something out of Orwell's magnum opus, "1984."

[5.56]

Yeah, just like leaving data aggregation to private companies. It's so much better for the privacy of the peasants. And government entities literally can't use that data, because it's privately owned. Like, they dont even have the money to get it.

In much the same way, leaving building a surveillance state to private entities will literally PREVENT government entities from getting involved, especially since, these days, there is an extra clear distinction between billionaires with yacht loads of self-interest and white house staff. These groups have no overlap.

I think some flavors of capitalism aren't necessarily better than government heavy ways to run a state.

[Vernon Depner]

Heavy-handed capitalism can't exist without government of some kind to do its enforcing.

[Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?)]

And even if you are currently unconcerned about pervasive government surveillance of these activities, do you want the police to know what religious services you attend; where your therapist's office is; what bars you stop by late nights; with whom you meet at political rallies; your attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings; or your clandestine dates with lovers?

All that shit is on your phone.

[Vernon Depner]

I knew someone who is in prison for murder because he had his phone with him when he hid the body.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

Just crack down on all the crime in general. This shit where they coddle criminal activity then demand unlimited surveillance is bullshit. That’s what they do in London.

Don’t be like London.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

NOLA? How about real-time titty recognition? And rewards.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

I give titties a lot of recognition everyday. And I find some of them very rewarding.

[Longtobefree]

New Orleans is where women show real breasts to get fake jewels.
Hollywood is where women show fake breasts to get real jewels.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Both work for me.

[sarcasmic]

According to the narrative Reason only cares about facial recognition when it's used to catch illegals. This article is critical of the surveillance state, period. That means that the narrative is wrong or this article doesn't exist. I know which the Trump defenders will choose.

[bye]

You don't know sht, that is the city of Latoya the Destroya, and all that stuff is in play because of HER.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Dunno. I feel like we need a lot more testing and government mandated jabs before we can condemn this. Won't masks save us again? Some might even walk the wrong way down the grocery store aisle. Will the back of my head trigger a police response.? Sorry Ron but you were an apologist for the biggest assault on human liberty in recent history. Some of us will never forget and you are not forgiven or redeemable.

[Incunabulum]

>do you want the police to know what religious services you attend; where your therapist's office is; what bars you stop by late nights; with whom you meet at political rallies; your attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings; or your clandestine dates with lovers?

Bailey - Third Party Doctrine. You already carry a tracking device with you at all times.

[bye]

IF you are not tech savvy ,you are right

Yes, you can turn off GPS on your phone, and it's a straightforward process on both iPhones and Android devices

[Vernon Depner]

But then some very useful apps won't work. My life is boring and routine enough that I don't care who knows where I am.

[BYODB]

Doesn't matter since you can triangulate phone position by tower pings. You'd need to do more than just disable GPS if this is a real concern you have.

[AT]

Look, as much as we might not like it, there is a reality which needs to be faced that, to a large degree we must adapt to a new and growing technological world.

We're quickly reaching the Minority Report society - maybe not with automated highways and psychic crimestoppers - but the facial (even optical) recog of everyday surveillance systems is ALREADY HERE.

Do you like Google Maps (esp. it's Traffic View and Efficiency Routing)? You're trading your cell phones Location Services in return for that. If you've got your cell phone keyed into your car, it'll even real-time calculate a route that maximizes fuel efficiency by contrasting Location Services with the vehicle's driving metrics. If you think you aren't being monitored a hundred times a day in one way or another, then I've got a bridge to sell you. Probably 50-100 times a day visually, maybe a half-dozen financially (possibly more), and digitally... pssh, hundreds and hundreds.

If you think those data points can't all be mapped and patterns can't be discerned from them - then it's really hard to take your whining about Project NOLA seriously, isn't it.

The tech is HERE. It's not going away. And if you think that some impotent asinine argument of, "Well WE should enjoy that tech, but the State shouldn't" is ever going to have any legs - well, even if you're right, the State is going to do it anyway. And just be a little more sly about it.

Stop complaining, learn to adapt. Evolve or die.

[Incunabulum]

We're also past the point of 'well corporations can't you in a cage' too. Google or Visa can do far worse to you than put you in jail nowadays

[AT]

NGL, I will straight up admit to my tinfoil belief that a notable aspect of the COVID hypochondria facade was a State op to train facial recognition tech on partial imaging.

They knew the masks were useless. They imposed them everywhere and threatened fierce retaliation unless obeyed. And they recorded everything. Particularly when they could match a partial facial to a shown ID.

You don't have to have Alex Jones and a couple frogs to put that one together.

[Vernon Depner]

Yep. The banks can turn off your life with a mouse click, anytime.

[Davy C]

"Obscurity in public places is a key component of freedom," argues Solove.

Is that so? In the founding era, obscurity wasn't so much of a thing. The 7th-biggest city in the US in 1790 was Salem with a population of a whopping 7,921. Even NYC had only 33,131 people - that's less than the population of current-day Manitowoc WI. For the average citizen, you could pretty much expect that if you did something in public, people would recognize you.

There is, however, a difference between a high probability of someone recognizing you, and ubiquitous always-on cameras alerting authorities about everywhere everyone goes.

[BYODB]

I kind of get it since New Orleans is basically a third world country. It's pretty bad when the locals tell you to watch your wallet since pickpockets are everywhere.

The NOPD takes their name seriously, they are never there when you need them.

Still, this isn't going to help their crime problem and it's pretty obviously dystopian.

[Longtobefree]

Missing the most important data; (D) or (R)?

Oh, never mind, I checked the author.