New Orleans has been using AI cameras for 2 years to identify criminals
This controversial technology is helping to find the escaped New Orleans inmates
By Clare Duffy, CNN
Minutes after Louisiana State Police got word on Friday morning that 10 inmates had escaped a New Orleans jail, two of them were spotted on facial recognition cameras in the city’s French Quarter. Police arrested one of the escapees shortly after; the other, days later.
The cameras were part of a network of around 5,000 operated around the city by the non-profit Project NOLA, 200 of which are outfitted with facial recognition technology. State police had shared information about the jailbreak with the organization.
The incident marks a win for the organization, whose camera network is believed to be unprecedented in the United States. The group is emblematic of a growing — albeit controversial — push to use facial recognition technology to help solve crimes.
“This is the exact reason why facial recognition technology is so critical,” New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said during a press conference earlier this week.
But as adoption of the technology has grown, advocacy groups warn that it could undermine individual privacy. Even worse, inaccurate matches by facial recognition technology systems run by police departments elsewhere have led to false arrests in other cities.
In New Orleans, those concerns may be heightened by the fact that Project NOLA is independent from local law enforcement agencies — although it shares information with police — and therefore isn’t necessarily subject to the same scrutiny or accountability.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/23/tech/...al-recognition