Local Level Fuckery and Corruption

October 2024

Police in Belize have temporarily paused their deal with U.S. facial recognition company Biometrica following concerns over moving data overseas.

The project was created to improve the tracking and identification of suspects in the popular Central American tourist destination. The collaboration, however, would have required sharing the county’s criminal database, including biometric fingerprint data, with Biometrica.

Belize Police Commissioner Chester Williams said that the agreement is on hold while they are looking for ways to keep data from Belizeans from being taken abroad. If this is not possible, Belize will look for a different software provider, the commissioner added.

“Perhaps if it is that they can develop a software and then we just get that software without the exchanging of data where we can keep our data in-house then we may be able to go with that,” says Williams. “But even the company itself had also called to say that they could not go through with the agreement because of some issue with the software they had developed.”

Williams also noted that Biometrica’s software is facing issues in other Caribbean countries, as reported by the local news outlet Channel 5 Belize. Biometric Update has reached out to the company for more information.

Biometrica has been working with law enforcement agencies in the U.S. The company’s eMotive criminal background checking software was integrated by the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC) to track potential child abductors and traffickers with facial biometrics.

Belize has been working on a national biometric strategy that was approved by the Cabinet in June.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joe Lopinto's office has agreed to pay six figures to a Georgia man who was jailed for nearly a week over a bad identification using facial recognition technology.

The $200,000 payout to Randal Quran Reid was sealed last month in federal court in New Orleans, a transcript shows. It resolves a civil rights lawsuit that Reid, now 31, filed against Lopinto's office over his arrest in DeKalb County, Georgia on a warrant signed by Jefferson Parish Judge Paul Schneider.

The affidavits supporting all of those warrants make no mention of facial recognition. They cited only "a credible source" for the suspects' identities. Schneider signed the warrants for all three. The case highlights the pitfalls of a technology that more police agencies are adopting in Louisiana and across the country — including in New Orleans, where some officials are pressing to expand its use.

The case highlights the pitfalls of a technology that more police agencies are adopting in Louisiana and across the country — including in New Orleans, where some officials are pressing to expand its use.

This is the same sheriff that recently made news after he left his personal gun in his unlocked car.

Sheriff’s gun stolen from car, “Do as I say, not as I do”

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/67597336

Hi Wisconsin, New Orleanian here.

This past May, Washington Post revealed the police in my city were secretly using the first of its kind facial recognition technology to track citizens in real time.

I'm posting here because I also learned that recently, Milwaukee police have been expressing interest in using facial recognition tech, despite protests from citizens.

New Orleans has been less than transparent about handling all of this, and NOPD has stopped using the tech since WaPo exposed they were violating a city ordinance. However, NOPD has now proposed an updated ordinance which would allow them to legally continue using the realtime tracking and facial recognition tech despite warnings from the ACLU that the ordinance will leave the city vulnerable to the federal government.

"If the federal government wants to use the data from New Orleans facial recognition system to identify and deport undocumented persons in the city, they just have to get a federal warrant to come in and get that data,” Marlow said. “And they’re going to use it for that purpose, regardless of what the local law says.”

“What the New Orleans City Council needs to understand, and they need to understand it right now, is that if they set up a system of this level of power in their city, and they don’t have lockdown control in all instances over the technology and its data, they are placing every resident of New Orleans and every visitor of New Orleans at risk,” Marlow continued. “Not only [is New Orleans] creating the possibility that the federal government could come in and commandeer this equipment and its data to go after people in New Orleans, they’re inviting it.”

The City Council meeting regarding the proposed ordinance is schedule for this Thursday, June 26 at 10:00a.m. CDT.

There is also a Livestream link if you or anyone you know is interested in watching the meeting

Whether you choose to watch or not, I hope you will stay vigilant about what AI and surveillance policy your local law enforcement might be considering and how it relates to your own civil liberties. I find it very odd that in addition to the concerns over police use of facial recognition tech, New Orleans and Wisconsin also share a concerning link to the Peter Thiel owned company Palantir.

Former Wisconsin Congressman Mike Gallagher was named Palantir's defense business chief in August of 2024.

From ~2012-2018, the city of New Orleans secretly partnered with Palantir and allowed the company to test it's controversial predictive policing tech.

After this secret contract was exposed, predictive policing and eventually facial recognition technology were banned in New Orleans in 2020. In 2022, the mayor requested the ban be lifted and replaced with an ordinance that would allow some very concerning surveillance practices by law enforcement, and allow facial recognition in certain circumstances as long as it followed the procedure outlined in the ordinance.

This is the same ordinance that WaPo proved NOPD was violating in May of this year, and the same ordinance New Orleans city council will vote to amend this Thursday, June 26, 2025.

Although the city has allegedly not worked with Palantir since the official contract was dissolved in 2018, Project Nola, the private surveillance company NOPD was receiving the facial recognition and real time tracking information from, was established in 2015 by a former New Orleans police officer. During this time, Palantir was still using surveillance tools throughout the city to create and test their new predictive policing tech.

It's important to note that in addition to owning Palantir, Peter Thiel also happens to fund the facial recognition software company Clearview AI. Clearview has been providing facial recognition software to federal agencies such as ICE and multiple local law enforcement agencies around the country since ~2020.