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NYPD bypassed facial recognition ban to ID pro-Palestinian student protester

(www.thecity.nyc)
291 points dataflow | 15 comments | 18 Jul 25 13:15 UTC | HN request time: 0.686s | source | bottom
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gruez ◴[18 Jul 25 14:11 UTC] No.44604843[source]▶
>A city fire marshal used FDNY’s access to a facial recognition software to help NYPD detectives identify a pro-Palestinian protester at Columbia University, circumventing policies that tightly restrict the Police Department’s use of the technology.

Why does the fire department need access to run facial recognition?

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1. neilv ◴[18 Jul 25 15:31 UTC] No.44605831[source]▶
> Why does the fire department need access to run facial recognition?

Arson investigation, identifying the people at the scene of a suspicious fire?

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2. krapp ◴[18 Jul 25 15:35 UTC] No.44605889[source]▶
The job of the fire department should be to fight fires, not to investigate crimes.

The police should be the ones investigating crimes, under extremely strict and limited guidelines (eg. 4th amendment) which in this case include not being allowed to use facial recognition software.

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3. Anechoic ◴[18 Jul 25 16:06 UTC] No.44606334[source]▶
The job of the fire department should be to fight fires, not to investigate crimes.

Part of the investigation is determining whether the event is actually a crime. I'd much rather have subject matter experts make the determination of arson vs. act-of-god rather than "every nail needs a hammer" police force.

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4. some_random ◴[18 Jul 25 16:18 UTC] No.44606484[source]▶
I think it's better to have a specific expert non-police organization in charge of investigating specific crimes like this, in fact we could probably do more of this. The issue here is that the NYPD wasn't banned because of 4th amendment reasons but based on a local law that didn't consider this loophole.
5. jajuuka ◴[18 Jul 25 16:21 UTC] No.44606527[source]▶
So adding more responsibilities to police to now also get expert level training in determining causes of fires and finding clues in a fire incident. That's kind of how we got here. Where the police are a panacea making them less effective and more corrupt since they are an even bigger keystone.

Separating out duties to experts is more effective. Let the fire department investigate fires and then pass on the information for the police to secure the suspect/s and follow the justice system. Same with mental health emergency cases. More social workers and experts dealing with a variety of mental disorders will be better to work people in crisis since they are trained for that.

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6. Detrytus ◴[18 Jul 25 16:23 UTC] No.44606559{3}[source]▶
Determining if it was an arson vs act-of-god should be mostly lab work, analyzing how the fire spread, whether there are any traces of flammable substances that should not be there, etc. That's what fire department should do, because they have expertise here. Analyzing security footage for potential suspects should be done by police.
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7. mschuster91 ◴[18 Jul 25 16:36 UTC] No.44606714{3}[source]▶
> So adding more responsibilities to police to now also get expert level training in determining causes of fires and finding clues in a fire incident.

In Germany, we have the same separation. We have solved the issue by having dedicated units for stuff like political crimes, online crimes, fire/arson investigators, organized crime, property crimes, violent crimes, drug units, you name it.

They're all policemen and -women, but at the very least they stay on the unit for many years and learn on the job, or they get additional education, or they get actual professionals (aka, the police officers do the police/bureaucracy side of things, the expert does the forensics).

> Let the fire department investigate fires and then pass on the information for the police to secure the suspect/s and follow the justice system.

Bad idea, there are lots of things to take care about when collecting and securing evidence.

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8. mitthrowaway2 ◴[18 Jul 25 16:40 UTC] No.44606781[source]▶
Wouldn't the fire department's role in an arson investigation be limited to consulting about the fire itself? (eg. identifying if accelerant was used, etc). I can't imagine they'd be identifying a suspect.
9. ◴[18 Jul 25 17:03 UTC] No.44607139{3}[source]▶
10. drowsspa ◴[18 Jul 25 17:03 UTC] No.44607144{3}[source]▶
The skills for putting out fires is very different from those for investigating fire-related crimes. It's literally a subarea of forensic science...
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11. jajuuka ◴[18 Jul 25 17:10 UTC] No.44607232{4}[source]▶
The fire department is bigger than the guys riding the truck. Those same guys aren't doing the investigation either. It's like saying cops can't investigate crimes because all they do is sit in medians and check for speeders.
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12. drowsspa ◴[18 Jul 25 17:11 UTC] No.44607251{5}[source]▶
I'm of course talking about the purpose of the department, not about the skills of an individual fireman.
13. jajuuka ◴[18 Jul 25 17:16 UTC] No.44607323{4}[source]▶
The US has similar department separation (just look at how many versions of Law and Order there are), but it's less diverse. So the number of departments is smaller.

Not a bad idea at all. The people from the fire department investigating arson are highly specialized. The only difference between the two systems is which head organization it falls under. So it would be like your fire/arson investigators working under the fire department instead of the police.

US policing has regularly been used to commit abuse and harassment as well as straight crimes. So having that consolidation of power is not good. This store is a perfect example of why they need to be separated because the police cannot be trusted to use facial ID tech responsibly.

14. Anechoic ◴[18 Jul 25 17:19 UTC] No.44607372{4}[source]▶
Analyzing security footage for potential suspects should be done by police.

Again, it's not just "potential suspects" it's potential witnesses, or identification of potential casualties. I don't feel great about state actors of any type using facial ID, but I can think of any number of reasons why a FD might use it in the course of their duties, and I would much prefer they have it over the PD.

15. dataflow ◴[18 Jul 25 19:33 UTC] No.44608889[source]▶
I really don't understand what the face of a person has to do with understanding whether something is arson or not. Just as I see no reason why my local grocery store's security guard needs to be able to look up my face in a database directly. If they need to gather more data, then they can ask law enforcement to identify any relevant people and gather relevant information (potentially bringing witnesses in for questioning if there's a legitimate need), then do their investigation based on the evidence to analyze the circumstances of the fire.