{
  "record": {
    "id": "cad955e1-4995-4fe6-a4bb-fcd02becd035",
    "code": "PAI-CAD955E1",
    "force": "New Orleans Police Department (via Project NOLA)",
    "country": "United States",
    "country_code": "us",
    "is_country": true,
    "region": "New Orleans, Louisiana",
    "technology": "Private live facial recognition network",
    "technology_slug": "private-lfr-networks",
    "vendor": "Project NOLA (private non-profit operator)",
    "vendor_slug": "",
    "programme": "",
    "status": "paused",
    "stage": "in-use",
    "evidence": "journalism",
    "evidence_is_claim": false,
    "since": "2023",
    "legal_basis": "New Orleans city ordinance restricting police facial recognition; the ACLU alleges the department's use breached it",
    "oversight": "New Orleans City Council; ACLU of Louisiana investigation; the 2022 city ordinance restricting police facial recognition",
    "notes": "Project NOLA is a private non-profit founded in 2009 by a former police officer, based on the University of New Orleans campus, acting as a hub for live video from thousands of cameras on private volunteer properties whose owners pay annual connectivity fees. Around 200 of the most sophisticated cameras run live facial recognition, continuously matching passers-by against hot lists of roughly 250 individuals. An automated voice alerts staff on a match; staff review and relay information to police once an evidentiary threshold is judged met, including unsolicited tips.\n\nFrom early 2023 until April 2025 the police department received real-time facial recognition alerts from a network of over 5,000 cameras, more than 200 facial-recognition equipped, despite city restrictions. The department suspended the real-time alert partnership pending a legal compliance review; the camera network was later reopened to police while facial recognition alerts stayed suspended. The City Council has moved towards an ordinance that would make New Orleans the first US city to formally authorise this form of facial recognition policing.\n\nRecorded as paused to reflect that the camera access continues while the facial recognition alerting does not.\n\nUpdate, November 2026. The council ordinance mentioned above, which would have widened police access to facial recognition, was reported by ID Tech on 24 September 2025 to have been withdrawn after several delays, and the ACLU says the council declined to pass a law endorsing Project NOLA; it is not in force, so the earlier wording that the council had \"moved towards\" authorising it is out of date. Verite News reported on 2 December 2025 that Project NOLA suspended the police department's camera access on 29 September 2025 after footage was given to a television production company, that access (excluding facial recognition) was restored after a meeting on 4 November, and that Project NOLA still passed facial recognition information to officers manually. The ACLU's article of 29 April 2026 cites emails from November 2025 showing officers sending photographs to Project NOLA's founder after the department's claimed pause, says there is no direct proof the live system is still running but that it is \"reasonable to presume\" use continues, and says the department dismissed complaints on the footing that such requests were not a \"use\" of facial recognition. The record therefore stays paused: the automatic alerts were suspended, and the extent of continuing manual use is disputed.",
    "source": "NPR, 16 December 2025; Verite News, 2 December 2025; ID Tech, 24 September 2025; ACLU, 29 April 2026",
    "source_url": "https://www.npr.org/2025/12/16/nx-s1-5616681/new-orleans-live-facial-recognition-surveillance",
    "last_checked": "2026-11-04",
    "record_url": "https://www.policeainews.com/tracker/record/cad955e1-4995-4fe6-a4bb-fcd02becd035"
  },
  "licence": "https://www.policeainews.com/data#licence"
}