The New York City MTA recently announced at a safety committee meeting that they will use AI to make predictions around “trouble.” They announced that if someone is “acting out” or “irrational” the system will alert the police to respond.
First, as any New Yorker knows, “acting out” and “irrational” in the train world, are very broad terms that do not require police.
Also, we know for a fact that the AI algorithms they are using are entrenched in racism, ableism, transphobia, classism and all the oppressive systems. This endangers every single person riding the train and beyond.
While they announced that they would be using this in the MTA system, I am certain that New York City wants to expand this to all public spaces, outside and inside.
They claim that their AI algorithms are not using facial recognition. However, as I covered in the past with licensed plate readers, crowd pattern recognition, and check points of all types such as Evolv gates, even if they are not intended for faces the technology captures faces anyway.
That is the way these lenses and algorithms work. They do not only read bodies from the neck down. They read shapes, patterns, movement, interactions, whole bodies, and faces. This can be used to identify behavior, gait, frequented locations, navigation paths, associations with others, and biometrics.
Additionally, the MTA is not a privacy and security company. It is a transportation company. All the data from every camera and checkpoint is being stored and processed somewhere. Even when non-AI, non-security, non-privacy companies are outsourced for their algorithms and technology, which is usually the case, that adds an extra exploitable layer of third party access.
None of this is helpful, beneficial, or safe. The MTA should not be allowed to have any of this information.
[three overhead surveillance cameras]
The density of cameras on trans and platforms in NYC has increased at an enormously quick rate over the past few years alone.
A camera is never just a camera in Empire, it is always surveillance. Cops and cameras on the trains and platforms are not for safety, they are for surveillance.
Be vigilant out there, all. As they are doing with the deportations, they are not looking at everyone to find criminals, they are trying to criminalize everyone.
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