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

>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?

It is not so important that the fire marshal has facial recognition, because the office chose that option because access was then free of charge and a mere handshake to them. If not the fire marshal, some independent 3rd party. This is a known trivial loophole to facial recognition bans. (Former lead dev of globally leading FR system.)

Sorry, can you clarify this? I’m not understanding. I think you’re saying

- the fire marshal happened to be the route chosen in this case

- but there are many other routes

- so the fire marshal detail is kindof insignificant.

Is that a correct understanding? If so, I still wonder why the fire marshal has access?

I think what he’s saying is if the police department is trying to identify a person in a photo, then anyone from the public can try to help them out.

Whether those people use facial recognition software or not isn’t exactly relevant to the law because the police didn’t use it. And it’s legal for other people to use it. As far as the police are concerned, they could have just been the person’s neighbor…