New Orleans Police Used Real-Time Facial Recognition Despite Local Ordinance
New Orleans Police reportedly used a real-time facial recognition system operated by Project NOLA to automatically alert officers to potential suspects, playing a role in dozens of arrests, despite a city ordinance restricting such use. The practice was paused in April after a Washington Post investigation, and the police superintendent ordered a review of whether it violated local restrictions.
What happened
Over the past two years, New Orleans Police relied on a privately owned network of cameras equipped with facial recognition software operated by Project NOLA to automatically monitor the streets for wanted people and send real-time alerts to officers' mobile phones with names and locations of possible matches.
According to court records, these cameras played a role in dozens of arrests, but most uses were never disclosed in police reports and were not included in the department's mandatory reports to the city council.
Reported impact
Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, stated: 'this is the facial recognition technology nightmare scenario that we have been worried about. This is the government giving itself the power to track anyone --- for that matter, everyone --- as we go about our lives walking around in public.'
Index analysis
The use of automated real-time facial recognition alerts violated a city ordinance that limited police use of facial recognition to still images of specific suspects in violent crime investigations, which required submission to a state fusion center in Baton Rouge for verification by trained examiners before deployment.
Governance controls
In April, after The Washington Post requested public records about the system, New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick paused the automated alerts and ordered a review into how officers used the technology and whether the practice violated local restrictions on facial recognition.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.