[ad_1]
According to one study, areas of New York City with higher rates of police calls have more CCTV cameras. New report from Amnesty InternationalDecode Surveillance NYC project.
As of April 2021, more than 7,000 volunteers began surveying the streets of New York City via Google Street View to document the location of the cameras; volunteers evaluated 45,000 intersections in triplicate and detected more than 25,500 cameras. The report estimates that around 3,300 of these cameras are publicly owned and used by government and law enforcement agencies. The project used this data with the help of BetaNYC, a tech-focused nonprofit, and contract data scientists to create a map that marks the coordinates of all 25,500 cameras.
Analysis of this data showed that the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens had more public cameras in census areas with a higher concentration of people of color.
To find out how the camera mesh relates to police searches, Amnesty researchers and collaborative data scientists determined the frequency of occurrence per 1,000 people in each census district (a geographic segment smaller than a zip code) in 2019 based on original street address data. from the NYPD. “Stop-and-see” policies allow officers to randomly check citizens on the basis of “reasonable suspicion”. NYPD data cited in the report It showed that since 2002, stop-and-go incidents have occurred in New York more than 5 million times, with the vast majority of searches being made on people of color. Most of the people subjected to these searches were innocent, According to the New York ACLU.
Each census zone was assigned a “surveillance level” based on the number of public cameras per 1000 inhabitants within 200 meters of its borders. Areas with more frequent stop and break calls also had a higher level of surveillance. For example, six such searches were made in 2019 on a half-mile route in Brooklyn’s East Flatbush and were covered by 60% by public cameras.
Experts fear that law enforcement will use facial recognition technology on broadcasts from these cameras, disproportionately targeting people of color in the process. According to documents obtained by the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP) through public registration requests, the New York Police Department at least used facial recognition, including the controversial Clearview AI system. 22,000 cases Between 2016 and 2019.
“Our analysis shows that the NYPD’s use of facial recognition technology is helping to strengthen discriminatory policing against minority communities in New York City,” said Matt Mahmoudi, Amnesty International researcher who worked on the report.
The report also details the exposure of those who participated in the Black Lives Matter protests last year to facial recognition technology by superimposing a surveillance map on marching routes. According to Mahmoudi, what he found was “almost total surveillance coverage.” While it’s unclear exactly how facial recognition technology was used during the protests, the NYPD has already used it in a protester investigation.
On August 7, 2020, dozens of New York City cops, some with riot gear, knocked on the door of 28-year-old Black Lives Matter activist Derrick Ingram. Ingram was suspected of attacking a police officer by honking a horn in a police officer’s ear during the march. Police, who arrived at the scene, were seen examining a document titled “Face Recognition Division Information Leader Report,” which included a social media photo of Ingram. NYPD confirmed using facial recognition to call him.
Eric Adams, the city’s new mayor, consider expanding the use of facial recognition technologyAlthough many cities in the US have banned it due to accuracy and bias concerns.
Jameson Spivack of Georgetown Law’s Center for Privacy and Technology says Amnesty International’s project “give us an idea of how extensive surveillance is, particularly in non-white neighborhoods, and how many public places are recorded in footage available to police.” facial recognition is on.”
[ad_2]
Source link