AI-powered street cameras halted by police over accuracy concerns

New Orleans police have conducted a secretive real-time facial recognition program using a private camera network to identify and arrest suspects—potentially violating a city ordinance designed to limit and regulate such technology. This unauthorized surveillance operation represents a significant escalation in police facial recognition use, raising serious concerns about civil liberties and proper oversight of AI-powered law enforcement tools.

The big picture: New Orleans police secretly used a network of over 200 private cameras to automatically identify suspects in real time, bypassing required oversight processes and potentially violating a 2022 city ordinance.

• The Washington Post investigation revealed that when cameras detected a possible match for a suspect, officers received immediate alerts on their phones.
• Court records suggest these cameras “played a role in dozens of arrests,” but most uses were never disclosed in mandatory police reports to the city council.

Why this matters: The program appears to be the first known widespread effort by police in a major U.S. city to use AI for real-time identification and immediate arrests from live camera feeds.

• Nathan Freed Wessler of the ACLU called it potentially the “sketchiest use of facial recognition yet” in the United States.
• The practice raises significant concerns about false arrests and civil rights violations that the city ordinance was specifically designed to prevent.

Regulatory evasion: The 2022 city ordinance established strict protocols for facial recognition use that police apparently circumvented.

• The ordinance limited use to specific violent crime investigations and required at least two trained examiners to verify matches before officers could approach suspects.
• Officers reportedly found this process too slow and opted to use the technology without oversight, including for at least four arrests involving nonviolent crimes.

Where things stand: The New Orleans Police Department has temporarily paused the program amid growing backlash.

• Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told the Post she would conduct a review and has turned off all automated alerts until she can ensure compliance with laws and policies.
• The ACLU has called for a full investigation into how many arrests were made using the system and demands the department permanently stop using the AI-enhanced surveillance feeds.