Both New York and New Orleans recently cracked the door slightly further open for high-tech policing. (We wouldn't want Robocop spraining his ankle when he kicks it down.)

If you had a goatee phase, this is your first warning to start deleting any old selfies you have on Facebook.

This is NOT the time to have photos floating around of you looking like a villain.

The mayors of both cities took steps to make new surveillance technologies, including facial recognition, more widely-used tools. The tech might be a problem, but there's something worse behind these stories.

Policies are quietly changing.

Eric Adams, the Mayor of New York, voiced his support for using "the latest in technology to identify problems".

I agree - googling why the rats in NY are the size of beagles would be a good start.

But the mayor specifically mentioned using facial recognition technology to identify criminals. That would be massive step forward for keeping us safe. If only the tech didn't come with racial biases and loose standards for what counts as a facial match.

In New Orleans, the Mayor Cantrell proposed an ordinance to remove restrictions on the police's ability to surveil people.

It would override a previous ordinance which banned (among other things) facial recognition software from being used by the police. It's an almost immediate reversal of the city's position, considering that the ban was only put in place in Dec. 2020.

But don't we all just want to be safe?

It's too easy to paint emerging technologies the police are using in broad, oppressive strokes.

Considering how we've seen facial recognition used in the past, it's a fair coat of paint. The world watched it be weaponized against the protesters in Hong Kong in 2019. What's even more concerning is the lack of accuracy it has shown in the U.S., where it's led to innocent men being harassed or jailed.

On the other hand, it absolutely can work to catch criminals, and it's hard arguing that that's a bad thing.

Using a combination of mug shots, social media posts, and footage from security systems, the police can fill in a lot of holes in their investigations. The new tech will help solve crimes, without a doubt.

The technology shouldn't concern us as much as the attitude towards it.

It's the eagerness that makes your skin crawl.

Especially in the case of New Orleans, the policy change looks aggressive. City council was forced by the police department to remove oversight of their surveillance from the ordinance passed in Dec. 2020, and now they're already looking to expand the police's surveillance powers.

Without measures in place to clearly define how the new tech can be used in a legal case, the chances that it will be used to violate someone's rights are very real.

By the time we decide to have a larger discussion about the tech, it might be coming on the heels of a case of horrific abuse.

And the way some public officials are rushing to adopt it is the thing that's going to lead to that.