Latest news with #ProjectNOLA
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
This controversial technology is helping to find the escaped New Orleans inmates
Minutes after Louisiana State Police got word on Friday morning that 10 inmates had escaped a New Orleans jail, two of them were spotted on facial recognition cameras in the city's French Quarter. Police arrested one of the escapees shortly after; the other, days later. The cameras were part of a network of around 5,000 operated around the city by the non-profit Project NOLA, 200 of which are outfitted with facial recognition technology. State police had shared information about the jailbreak with the organization. The incident marks a win for the organization, whose camera network is believed to be unprecedented in the United States. The group is emblematic of a growing — albeit controversial — push to use facial recognition technology to help solve crimes. 'This is the exact reason why facial recognition technology is so critical,' New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said during a press conference earlier this week. But as adoption of the technology has grown, advocacy groups warn that it could undermine individual privacy. Even worse, inaccurate matches by facial recognition technology systems run by police departments elsewhere have led to false arrests in other cities. In New Orleans, those concerns may be heightened by the fact that Project NOLA is independent from local law enforcement agencies — although it shares information with police — and therefore isn't necessarily subject to the same scrutiny or accountability. 'This is the stuff of authoritarian surveillance states, and has no place in American policing,' Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, said in a statement following a Washington Post report about the effort earlier this week. But Project NOLA is a community endeavor, said Executive Director Bryan Lagarde, supported by the churches, schools, businesses and individual homeowners who he says allow the group to place cameras on their properties and can remove them at any time. 'This has been a community endeavor from the very beginning,' Lagarde told CNN. 'If we ever violate public trust, (the camera network) comes down instantly and effortlessly by the community that built it.' Project NOLA was created in 2009 to be a 'force multiplier' for local law enforcement agencies, whose resources had been impacted by Hurricane Katrina, Lagarde said. Today, the non-profit also operates 5,000 cameras in other cities around the country. Project NOLA takes images of wanted suspects from law enforcement 'be on the lookout' alerts and feeds them into its 'hot list' system. When its network of facial recognition cameras identifies a potential match, it sends a real-time alert to law enforcement. That's what happened on Friday, when two of the escaped inmates walked in front of Project NOLA cameras mounted on local businesses in New Orleans' French Quarter. One was arrested shortly after. The other was tracked to a housing complex where Project NOLA does not have cameras but was arrested on Tuesday thanks in part to the information provided by Project NOLA about his likely location, according to the group. Five escapees from the Friday jailbreak remain at large. Project NOLA cameras were also used to investigate the New Orleans terror attack last New Year's Day that killed 14 people. Lagarde declined to provide the name of the third-party company that makes the facial recognition artificial intelligence model the group uses in its cameras. As with many applications of AI, there is no federal regulation regarding whether and how AI can be used by local law enforcement. But a number of other cities have barred the use of facial recognition by government agencies, including police, over concerns about its efficacy and ethical implications. Research has shown that the technology is less effective at correctly identifying women and people of color than white men, fueling worries that the tech's shortcomings could have an outsize impact on historically marginalized groups. Given the history of racial bias within some US police forces, 'Black and other people of color are at greater risk of misidentification,' when facial recognition is brought into the fold, Nicol Turner Lee and Caitlin Chin Rothman wrote in a 2022 Brookings report. CNN has reached out to NOPD for comment regarding its relationship with Project NOLA. Kirkpatrick, the police superintendent, told the Washington Post earlier this week that her agency had launched a review of officers' use of alerts provided by Project NOLA, the accuracy of the information the group provides and how the partnership fits within city rules. Lagarde said Project NOLA has aimed to be transparent with the New Orleans community about its work, including by partnering with locals to put up its cameras and posting about its work on social media. 'All of our data is on-network, which means it comes from our own network of cameras. Our cameras are on people's homes, business, churches, schools… The facial recognition is not being paid for by tax dollars. It is not accessible directly by law enforcement,' he said. 'So, you know, we are the gatekeepers. We check everything that goes into the system make sure it's valid.'
CNN
23-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
This controversial technology is helping to find the escaped New Orleans inmates
Minutes after Louisiana State Police got word on Friday morning that 10 inmates had escaped a New Orleans jail, two of them were spotted on facial recognition cameras in the city's French Quarter. Police arrested one of the escapees shortly after; the other, days later. The cameras were part of a network of around 5,000 operated around the city by the non-profit Project NOLA, 200 of which are outfitted with facial recognition technology. State police had shared information about the jailbreak with the organization. The incident marks a win for the organization, whose camera network is believed to be unprecedented in the United States. The group is emblematic of a growing — albeit controversial — push to use facial recognition technology to help solve crimes. 'This is the exact reason why facial recognition technology is so critical,' New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said during a press conference earlier this week. But as adoption of the technology has grown, advocacy groups warn that it could undermine individual privacy. Even worse, inaccurate matches by facial recognition technology systems run by police departments elsewhere have led to false arrests in other cities. In New Orleans, those concerns may be heightened by the fact that Project NOLA is independent from local law enforcement agencies — although it shares information with police — and therefore isn't necessarily subject to the same scrutiny or accountability. 'This is the stuff of authoritarian surveillance states, and has no place in American policing,' Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, said in a statement following a Washington Post report about the effort earlier this week. But Project NOLA is a community endeavor, said Executive Director Bryan Lagarde, supported by the churches, schools, businesses and individual homeowners who he says allow the group to place cameras on their properties and can remove them at any time. 'This has been a community endeavor from the very beginning,' Lagarde told CNN. 'If we ever violate public trust, (the camera network) comes down instantly and effortlessly by the community that built it.' Project NOLA was created in 2009 to be a 'force multiplier' for local law enforcement agencies, whose resources had been impacted by Hurricane Katrina, Lagarde said. Today, the non-profit also operates 5,000 cameras in other cities around the country. Project NOLA takes images of wanted suspects from law enforcement 'be on the lookout' alerts and feeds them into its 'hot list' system. When its network of facial recognition cameras identifies a potential match, it sends a real-time alert to law enforcement. That's what happened on Friday, when two of the escaped inmates walked in front of Project NOLA cameras mounted on local businesses in New Orleans' French Quarter. One was arrested shortly after. The other was tracked to a housing complex where Project NOLA does not have cameras but was arrested on Tuesday thanks in part to the information provided by Project NOLA about his likely location, according to the group. Five escapees from the Friday jailbreak remain at large. Project NOLA cameras were also used to investigate the New Orleans terror attack last New Year's Day that killed 14 people. Lagarde declined to provide the name of the third-party company that makes the facial recognition artificial intelligence model the group uses in its cameras. As with many applications of AI, there is no federal regulation regarding whether and how AI can be used by local law enforcement. But a number of other cities have barred the use of facial recognition by government agencies, including police, over concerns about its efficacy and ethical implications. Research has shown that the technology is less effective at correctly identifying women and people of color than white men, fueling worries that the tech's shortcomings could have an outsize impact on historically marginalized groups. Given the history of racial bias within some US police forces, 'Black and other people of color are at greater risk of misidentification,' when facial recognition is brought into the fold, Nicol Turner Lee and Caitlin Chin Rothman wrote in a 2022 Brookings report. CNN has reached out to NOPD for comment regarding its relationship with Project NOLA. Kirkpatrick, the police superintendent, told the Washington Post earlier this week that her agency had launched a review of officers' use of alerts provided by Project NOLA, the accuracy of the information the group provides and how the partnership fits within city rules. Lagarde said Project NOLA has aimed to be transparent with the New Orleans community about its work, including by partnering with locals to put up its cameras and posting about its work on social media. 'All of our data is on-network, which means it comes from our own network of cameras. Our cameras are on people's homes, business, churches, schools… The facial recognition is not being paid for by tax dollars. It is not accessible directly by law enforcement,' he said. 'So, you know, we are the gatekeepers. We check everything that goes into the system make sure it's valid.'
CNN
23-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
This controversial technology is helping to find the escaped New Orleans inmates
Minutes after Louisiana State Police got word on Friday morning that 10 inmates had escaped a New Orleans jail, two of them were spotted on facial recognition cameras in the city's French Quarter. Police arrested one of the escapees shortly after; the other, days later. The cameras were part of a network of around 5,000 operated around the city by the non-profit Project NOLA, 200 of which are outfitted with facial recognition technology. State police had shared information about the jailbreak with the organization. The incident marks a win for the organization, whose camera network is believed to be unprecedented in the United States. The group is emblematic of a growing — albeit controversial — push to use facial recognition technology to help solve crimes. 'This is the exact reason why facial recognition technology is so critical,' New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said during a press conference earlier this week. But as adoption of the technology has grown, advocacy groups warn that it could undermine individual privacy. Even worse, inaccurate matches by facial recognition technology systems run by police departments elsewhere have led to false arrests in other cities. In New Orleans, those concerns may be heightened by the fact that Project NOLA is independent from local law enforcement agencies — although it shares information with police — and therefore isn't necessarily subject to the same scrutiny or accountability. 'This is the stuff of authoritarian surveillance states, and has no place in American policing,' Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, said in a statement following a Washington Post report about the effort earlier this week. But Project NOLA is a community endeavor, said Executive Director Bryan Lagarde, supported by the churches, schools, businesses and individual homeowners who he says allow the group to place cameras on their properties and can remove them at any time. 'This has been a community endeavor from the very beginning,' Lagarde told CNN. 'If we ever violate public trust, (the camera network) comes down instantly and effortlessly by the community that built it.' Project NOLA was created in 2009 to be a 'force multiplier' for local law enforcement agencies, whose resources had been impacted by Hurricane Katrina, Lagarde said. Today, the non-profit also operates 5,000 cameras in other cities around the country. Project NOLA takes images of wanted suspects from law enforcement 'be on the lookout' alerts and feeds them into its 'hot list' system. When its network of facial recognition cameras identifies a potential match, it sends a real-time alert to law enforcement. That's what happened on Friday, when two of the escaped inmates walked in front of Project NOLA cameras mounted on local businesses in New Orleans' French Quarter. One was arrested shortly after. The other was tracked to a housing complex where Project NOLA does not have cameras but was arrested on Tuesday thanks in part to the information provided by Project NOLA about his likely location, according to the group. Five escapees from the Friday jailbreak remain at large. Project NOLA cameras were also used to investigate the New Orleans terror attack last New Year's Day that killed 14 people. Lagarde declined to provide the name of the third-party company that makes the facial recognition artificial intelligence model the group uses in its cameras. As with many applications of AI, there is no federal regulation regarding whether and how AI can be used by local law enforcement. But a number of other cities have barred the use of facial recognition by government agencies, including police, over concerns about its efficacy and ethical implications. Research has shown that the technology is less effective at correctly identifying women and people of color than white men, fueling worries that the tech's shortcomings could have an outsize impact on historically marginalized groups. Given the history of racial bias within some US police forces, 'Black and other people of color are at greater risk of misidentification,' when facial recognition is brought into the fold, Nicol Turner Lee and Caitlin Chin Rothman wrote in a 2022 Brookings report. CNN has reached out to NOPD for comment regarding its relationship with Project NOLA. Kirkpatrick, the police superintendent, told the Washington Post earlier this week that her agency had launched a review of officers' use of alerts provided by Project NOLA, the accuracy of the information the group provides and how the partnership fits within city rules. Lagarde said Project NOLA has aimed to be transparent with the New Orleans community about its work, including by partnering with locals to put up its cameras and posting about its work on social media. 'All of our data is on-network, which means it comes from our own network of cameras. Our cameras are on people's homes, business, churches, schools… The facial recognition is not being paid for by tax dollars. It is not accessible directly by law enforcement,' he said. 'So, you know, we are the gatekeepers. We check everything that goes into the system make sure it's valid.'
CNN
23-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
This controversial technology is helping to find the escaped New Orleans inmates
Minutes after Louisiana State Police got word on Friday morning that 10 inmates had escaped a New Orleans jail, two of them were spotted on facial recognition cameras in the city's French Quarter. Police arrested one of the escapees shortly after; the other, days later. The cameras were part of a network of around 5,000 operated around the city by the non-profit Project NOLA, 200 of which are outfitted with facial recognition technology. State police had shared information about the jailbreak with the organization. The incident marks a win for the organization, whose camera network is believed to be unprecedented in the United States. The group is emblematic of a growing — albeit controversial — push to use facial recognition technology to help solve crimes. 'This is the exact reason why facial recognition technology is so critical,' New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said during a press conference earlier this week. But as adoption of the technology has grown, advocacy groups warn that it could undermine individual privacy. Even worse, inaccurate matches by facial recognition technology systems run by police departments elsewhere have led to false arrests in other cities. In New Orleans, those concerns may be heightened by the fact that Project NOLA is independent from local law enforcement agencies — although it shares information with police — and therefore isn't necessarily subject to the same scrutiny or accountability. 'This is the stuff of authoritarian surveillance states, and has no place in American policing,' Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, said in a statement following a Washington Post report about the effort earlier this week. But Project NOLA is a community endeavor, said Executive Director Bryan Lagarde, supported by the churches, schools, businesses and individual homeowners who he says allow the group to place cameras on their properties and can remove them at any time. 'This has been a community endeavor from the very beginning,' Lagarde told CNN. 'If we ever violate public trust, (the camera network) comes down instantly and effortlessly by the community that built it.' Project NOLA was created in 2009 to be a 'force multiplier' for local law enforcement agencies, whose resources had been impacted by Hurricane Katrina, Lagarde said. Today, the non-profit also operates 5,000 cameras in other cities around the country. Project NOLA takes images of wanted suspects from law enforcement 'be on the lookout' alerts and feeds them into its 'hot list' system. When its network of facial recognition cameras identifies a potential match, it sends a real-time alert to law enforcement. That's what happened on Friday, when two of the escaped inmates walked in front of Project NOLA cameras mounted on local businesses in New Orleans' French Quarter. One was arrested shortly after. The other was tracked to a housing complex where Project NOLA does not have cameras but was arrested on Tuesday thanks in part to the information provided by Project NOLA about his likely location, according to the group. Five escapees from the Friday jailbreak remain at large. Project NOLA cameras were also used to investigate the New Orleans terror attack last New Year's Day that killed 14 people. Lagarde declined to provide the name of the third-party company that makes the facial recognition artificial intelligence model the group uses in its cameras. As with many applications of AI, there is no federal regulation regarding whether and how AI can be used by local law enforcement. But a number of other cities have barred the use of facial recognition by government agencies, including police, over concerns about its efficacy and ethical implications. Research has shown that the technology is less effective at correctly identifying women and people of color than white men, fueling worries that the tech's shortcomings could have an outsize impact on historically marginalized groups. Given the history of racial bias within some US police forces, 'Black and other people of color are at greater risk of misidentification,' when facial recognition is brought into the fold, Nicol Turner Lee and Caitlin Chin Rothman wrote in a 2022 Brookings report. CNN has reached out to NOPD for comment regarding its relationship with Project NOLA. Kirkpatrick, the police superintendent, told the Washington Post earlier this week that her agency had launched a review of officers' use of alerts provided by Project NOLA, the accuracy of the information the group provides and how the partnership fits within city rules. Lagarde said Project NOLA has aimed to be transparent with the New Orleans community about its work, including by partnering with locals to put up its cameras and posting about its work on social media. 'All of our data is on-network, which means it comes from our own network of cameras. Our cameras are on people's homes, business, churches, schools… The facial recognition is not being paid for by tax dollars. It is not accessible directly by law enforcement,' he said. 'So, you know, we are the gatekeepers. We check everything that goes into the system make sure it's valid.'
CNN
22-05-2025
- CNN
Technology, teamwork and cash play key roles in massive manhunt for New Orleans prison escapees
A team of over 200 local, state and federal law enforcement officers and agents is working around the clock to capture the remaining missing inmates who broke out of a New Orleans jail in a stunning overnight escape last week, according to Louisiana State Police. Investigators have declined to comment on the specifics of the manhunt or the believed whereabouts of the fugitives. 'We don't discuss any of the investigative tools we use, that would be like the Eagles showing their Super Bowl playbook before the game,' Deputy US Marshal Brian Fair told CNN. But tips from the public and cash rewards offered by various agencies are key to the investigation, Fair said. As of early Thursday, five of the 10 who escaped were back in custody. Here are some of the known techniques being used to aid in the manhunt: So, far, all recaptured escapees have been found in New Orleans. A key tool at investigators' disposal is Project NOLA, a high definition crime camera program headquartered on the campus of the University of New Orleans. It was used to spot one of escapees in the French Quarter just minutes after the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office notified Louisiana State Police of the mass escape Friday and continues to play a major role in the manhunt. A second escaped inmate was found only one block away from where Project NOLA facial recognition crime cameras lost him hours after the breakout, according to the organization. What sets the nonprofit's model apart is its cameras are positioned on private homes and businesses and can be outfitted with facial recognition, license plate reading and clothing recognition software. In 2016, Project NOLA partnered with the University of New Orleans which now houses the group's National Real-Time Crime Center where cameras are monitored and simulcast to the municipalities and police monitoring stations the project serves, according to Project NOLA's executive director and founder, Bryan Lagarde. Project NOLA itself only has a full-time staff of five, Lagarde said, but they do their best to monitor certain areas and events. Otherwise, the local municipalities can monitor as they deem necessary. The organization maintains a 'hot list' of mug shots and information on fugitives. As its cameras sweep an area, they are constantly comparing the passing faces to that list, Lagarde said. Each one of their cameras, like the ones on Bourbon Street, can scan up to '300-something faces per second,' he said. Hundreds of messages have poured into the Crimestoppers of New Orleans tip line from the community, as the agency says it wants to encourage tipsters to make sure they add more detail to the information they share. So far, two suspects have been caught because of tips into Crimestoppers, the agency told CNN. The reward for information leading to the recapture of the remaining inmates has been increased to a total amount of $20,000 for each fugitive, the Louisiana State Police announced Monday. The sum includes a $5,000 reward from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a $5,000 reward from Crimestoppers and a $10,000 reward from the FBI. 'You put a $20,000 bounty on each of their heads, people are going to call Crime Stoppers. People are going to call the hotline number. They're going to report anonymously,' Marlon Defillo, a former assistant superintendent with the New Orleans Police Department, told CNN. 'They may not give their name, but they'll certainly put the law enforcement in the right direction as to where they may be,' he said. 'There is $20,000 for each escapee, and that's cash, folks, we don't need your name. We just want your information,' Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson said Tuesday. While he would not elaborate on investigators' work related to known associates of the escapees, Fair told CNN he 'wouldn't call it surprising' that five of them were caught in New Orleans area, given any resources they might have likely are in the city. 'They're going to go back into the neighborhoods that they know best, their own neighborhoods where they grew up and where they were reared. They're not familiar with anything or any other type of location or locale outside of the city of New Orleans, because they were born and raised here their entire lives. 'Without money, without food, without clothing, without resources. That's going to make it very difficult for them to seek refuge anywhere outside of the city,' Defillo said. 'You're just unlikely to go somewhere where you have zero support or help. And most of these, if not all of these individuals, grew up in New Orleans,' Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill told FOX News on Wednesday. 'They were young, young children, really, around the time of Hurricane Katrina, their resources are here.' Hutson on Tuesday sent a message to those who may be harboring the fugitives, saying 'It's not too late to change course. If you will work with us, we will work with you.' 'You can change course. You can let us know, and we can help you,' she said. 'But I will tell you, if they participate willfully and knowingly, they are going to be charged with serious felonies. They're going to spend time,' the sheriff warned. 'We just want your information, and so you have one of two choices. You can either choose prison because we are going to catch you and charge you, or you can cooperate. Even if you're scared, we can help you.' The breakout has left New Orleans on high alert – with members of the district attorney's staff fleeing for their safety – and local and state officials investigating how an escape could have happened. The escapees face an array of charges including aggravated assault with a firearm, false imprisonment with a weapon and murder. The five inmates who have been recaptured are being held at Louisiana State Penitentiary, a maximum-security facility. The latest to be caught, Corey Boyd, 19, was arrested Tuesday, about five days after he and nine other men broke out of the Orleans Justice Center through a hole behind a metal toilet just after midnight Friday. The captured inmates will be held without bond, Murrill said in a social media post Wednesday. A maintenance worker with the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office, Sterling Williams, 33, was arrested Tuesday. Williams is accused of 'willfully and maliciously' assisting with the jailbreak, according to an affidavit. He faces one count of malfeasance in office and 10 counts of being a principal to simple escape. Williams' attorney, Michael Kennedy, said the worker was turning off water to an overflowing toilet after being told to do so and the is 'fully convinced' of his client's innocence. Two other people, Cortnie Harris, 32, and Corvanntay Baptiste, 38, were arrested on suspicion of assisting some of the inmates after they escaped, Louisiana State Police said in an update Wednesday. Hutson, who oversees the jail, announced Tuesday she is suspending her reelection campaign, just hours after fielding tough questions from local leaders at a tense city council meeting.
