New Orleans has emerged as a flashpoint in debates over real-time facial recognition technology. The city’s leaders are weighing a landmark ordinance that, if passed, would make New Orleans the first U.S. city to formally legalize continuous facial surveillance by police officers.

The move follows revelations that, for two years, the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) quietly used automated alerts from a privately operated camera network known as Project NOLA that bypassed the strictures of the city’s 2022 ordinance which explicitly banned such practices. Project NOLA is a non-profit surveillance network founded by ex-police detective Bryan Lagarde.

Despite this, Project NOLA’s network was set to continuously and automatically scan public spaces. Every face that passed within view was compared in real time, and officers were pinged via an app whenever a watchlist match occurred, leaving no requirement for supervisory oversight, independent verification, or adherence to reporting standards.

Opponents argue that automated surveillance everywhere in public spaces raises profound threats to privacy, civil rights, and due process. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Louisiana described the system as a “facial recognition technology nightmare” that enables the government to “track us as we go about our daily lives.”

The wrongful arrest of Randal Reid based on misidentification from still-image facial recognition is touted as highlighting the real-world dangers of facial recognition. Reid is a 29‑year‑old Black logistics analyst from Georgia who was wrongfully arrested in late 2022 and held for six days due to a false facial recognition match.

The ACLU has urged the City Council to reimpose a moratorium and demand an independent audit covering privacy compliance, algorithmic bias, evidence admissibility, record retention, and public awareness. The organization said that NOPD currently lacks any system for logging or disclosing facial-recognition-derived evidence, and Project NOLA operates outside official oversight entirely.

A vote by the City Council is expected later this month. If passed, NOPD and any authorized third party will be legally empowered to scan live public feeds using facial recognition, provided reports are submitted according to the new law.

Meanwhile, NOPD is awaiting the outcome of its internal audit and Kirkpatrick has stated that policy revisions will be guided by the council’s decisions. Meanwhile, the ACLU and partners are preparing to escalate their opposition, pushing for either outright prohibition or deeply strengthened accountability measures.

The decision facing New Orleans encapsulates the broader tension between embracing AI-based public safety tools and protecting civil liberties. Proponents emphasize the edge that real-time intelligence can provide in stopping violent crime and responding to emergencies, while critics warn that indiscriminate surveillance erodes privacy, civil rights, and due-process safeguards.

A few things I feel are very important that none of the recent June articles about this mention:

1. The city has managed to keep this all relatively under wraps. Few people are even aware of this, and even if they are they are not aware of the level of surveillance.
2. This seems to be being kept in the dark even by people that we should be able to trust. I only found out about the City Council vote this month bc I make a habit of searching for updates about this every so often. I cannot find any information about when the vote is actually scheduled, just sometimes at the end of June. This is the last week of June so presumably this week?
3. State Police and ICE can't be regulated by city government. There is a permanent state police force in New Orleans that was established as of last year by Governor Landry.

I believe they have continued using this technology however they please, and there is no real way for the city to regulate how they use it, and who they share it with.

New Orleans debates real-time facial recognition legislation

The landmark ordinance, if passed, would make New Orleans the first U.S. city to formally legalize continuous facial surveillance by police officers.

^{Anthony Kimery (BiometricUpdate.com)}

account.hypr.land/

(from Vaxry, creator of Hyprland)

Hey hey people, vax here.

I've seen the post about Hyprland Premium go a bit viral and people don't seem to understand fully what we're doing.

There is a reason no pages link to the account. subdomain, because it's a work in progress, after all. That's why wording is a bit lacking, that's why registrations are closed.

Anyways, here are some key takeaways:

Yes, it's real

It's the official website. I did not get hacked.

Hyprland is not going closed source

It says that in the first sentence on the page. No paid features, beta branches, etc. We continue development as always.

Why money

I need something to eat too. Once I end university, if I can't make this my full-time job, I will have to severely decrease my contributions in favor of a real job. If this gets us somewhere, it will be only with benefits to you, the users. If I get enough money to hire another guy to help me work on Hyprland full time, I will.

Forums:

Already on forum.hypr.land. To log in, you need a Hyprland Account, that's why we haven't "fully" launched them yet.

"Premium" Forums:

Additional categories on the same forum for premium subscribers - these include premium support (where you get answers from me instead of the community at large), Q&A with me, and some banter chats.

Desktop Experience:

Free desktop experience: Dotfiles provided by us, with one-click installs and updates.

Premium desktop experience: Same as above, but with more customization options. (dotfile customizations, e.g. "bar on what side", "what button where", etc, not Hyprland features)

"Further premium services":

A general catch-all clause if any premium services come out in the future, they will most likely just be a part of the premium subscription. This might be dotfile sync, or other ideas. We don't know yet, that's why we didn't say.

Cheers, happy Hyprlanding.