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

(www.thecity.nyc)

291 points dataflow | 1 comments | 18 Jul 25 13:15 UTC | HN request time: 0.267s | source

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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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neilv ◴[18 Jul 25 15:31 UTC] No.44605831[source]▶

>>44604843 #

> 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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1. dataflow ◴[18 Jul 25 19:33 UTC] No.44608889[source]▶

>>44605831 #

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.

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