This post was originally published on insomniac.tech on June 30, 2025.
Below are my public comments and recommendations to the New Orleans City Council Criminal Justice meeting on 2025-Jun-30: https://council.nola.gov/meetings/2025/20250630-criminal-justice/
I live in District A. Councilman Giarrusso is my representative. I’m writing today to oppose the expansion of NOPD’s mass surveillance powers and to urge the City Council to investigate rampant misuse of facial recognition technology.
For more than 20 years, I have worked in cybersecurity. I began my career in national security, where I developed surveillance systems for the federal government. For decades, my daily job has afforded me extraordinary access to personal and private information. That access requires extensive training and approval from legal authorities. Every privileged access is logged, audited, and requires specific authorization.
None of these controls exist for NOPD’s access to Project Nola. I have made FOIA requests to NOPD since January 2023. There is no training. There is no logging. There is no accountability. NOPD has used facial recognition technology in violation of the Council’s mandates. These privacy violations are egregious and unprofessional. NOPD cannot be trusted with expanded powers.
Instead, I urge the Council to:
- Investigate NOPD’s past misuse of Project NOLA and facial recognition technology.
- Establish an expert and community committee to make detailed recommendations to the Council.
- Ban usage of all software or systems determined to be a national security risk by the FCC
- Ban usage of any systems used by or supporting ICE
- Ban access to any NOPD data to unapproved 3rd parties.
- Define acceptable use policy for all facial recognition and mass surveillance technology.
- Require NOPD training and certification for usage.
- Require standard operating procedures.
- Require any systems used to have a council-approved contract.
- Require suspects and courts to be notified of all AI, facial recognition, or mass surveillance usage.
- Require usage only on approved NOPD devices.
- Ban detail or other work of any NOPD officer or employee to any AI/Facial Recognition/Surveillance vendor.
- Require RCA on all false positive alerts.
- Monthly public reports of any misuse and policy violations
- Require and appoint an external auditor with full read access reporting to the Council.
- Require a formal review process for any individual arrested because of false identification.
- Require a formal public complaint process.
- All AI systems, facial recognition systems, and surveillance systems used by NOPD must measurably demonstrate effectiveness, security, and audibility.
