NYPD bypassed facial recognition ban to ID pro-Palestinian student protester
158 comments
·July 18, 2025gruez
bsenftner
It is not so important that the fire marshal has facial recognition, because the office chose that option because access was then free of charge and a mere handshake to them. If not the fire marshal, some independent 3rd party. This is a known trivial loophole to facial recognition bans. (Former lead dev of globally leading FR system.)
rendaw
It is not so important that the fire marshal has facial recognition, because the police department chose to ask the fire department because access was then free of charge and a mere handshake to them. If not the fire marshal, the police department would have chosen some independent 3rd party. This is a known trivial loophole to facial recognition bans. (Former lead dev of globally leading facial recognition system.)
dmix
The cop emailed the Fire Marshal who technically does investigations for stuff like arson. Maybe that's the justification for it, not sure.
toomuchtodo
Same operating model of law enforcement laundering their data requests on the Flock Safety/Group ALPR platform through adjacent agencies who have access. My hot take is this should be a termination and criminal offense in public employment (as a cybersecurity/risk mgmt practitioner).
dmix
Or Five Eyes doing data sharing between themselves which 'incidentally' bypasses domestic surveillance laws
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/20/us-uk-secret-d...
neilv
> Why does the fire department need access to run facial recognition?
Arson investigation, identifying the people at the scene of a suspicious fire?
mitthrowaway2
Wouldn't the fire department's role in an arson investigation be limited to consulting about the fire itself? (eg. identifying if accelerant was used, etc). I can't imagine they'd be identifying a suspect.
krapp
The job of the fire department should be to fight fires, not to investigate crimes.
The police should be the ones investigating crimes, under extremely strict and limited guidelines (eg. 4th amendment) which in this case include not being allowed to use facial recognition software.
Anechoic
The job of the fire department should be to fight fires, not to investigate crimes.
Part of the investigation is determining whether the event is actually a crime. I'd much rather have subject matter experts make the determination of arson vs. act-of-god rather than "every nail needs a hammer" police force.
jajuuka
So adding more responsibilities to police to now also get expert level training in determining causes of fires and finding clues in a fire incident. That's kind of how we got here. Where the police are a panacea making them less effective and more corrupt since they are an even bigger keystone.
Separating out duties to experts is more effective. Let the fire department investigate fires and then pass on the information for the police to secure the suspect/s and follow the justice system. Same with mental health emergency cases. More social workers and experts dealing with a variety of mental disorders will be better to work people in crisis since they are trained for that.
some_random
I think it's better to have a specific expert non-police organization in charge of investigating specific crimes like this, in fact we could probably do more of this. The issue here is that the NYPD wasn't banned because of 4th amendment reasons but based on a local law that didn't consider this loophole.
hearsathought
[flagged]
dralley
>All because of a protest against a foreign country committing acts of genocide.
He hit (or at least was accused of hitting) a counter-protester with a rock. It's in the 3rd paragraph of the article.
buran77
One thing's for sure, it always starts with the "terrorists" and "pedophiles". But it would never be used against someone like you, would it?
Turkeys voting for Thanksgiving is what this is.
reactordev
Just because it was written does not make it true. Cops have come up with all sorts of excuses to justify their criminal behavior including just plain old “I’m a cop” defense.
hearsathought
> He hit (or at least was accused of hitting) a counter-protester with a rock. It's in the 3rd paragraph of the article.
And? Do you think the authorities would go to such extremes over a rock throwing incident if it didn't involve israel? Better yet, if it was the pro-israel counter-protestor throwing the rock, do you think the authorities would have wasted a second investigating the matter? Let alone breaking the law to get the suspect?
andrewla
This headline is extremely misleading because it leads you to believe that they are IDing this person because they are a "Pro-Palestinian Student Protester".
More proper would be "NYPD Bypassed Facial Recognition Ban to ID Rock-Throwing Assailant"
Worth noting that the charges were dismissed, and that they added a hate crime enhancement based on why he threw the rock. The "hate crime" aspect does tie in to his protest activities, and like all hate crime enhancements is completely ridiculous, of course.
In the end, this is not a free speech issue except tangentially; it is a privacy issue.
tempfile
> it leads you to believe that they are IDing this person because they are a "Pro-Palestinian Student Protester"
It is likewise misleading to imply that the fact they are a student protester is irrelevant. They are trying very hard to make an example out of these people.
mattnewton
Feels like a real life shiri’s scissor[0] in how many different factors collide to stop rational discussion and “shortcut” thought to existing worldviews past nuance.
To engage in this discussion, you have to avoid falling into at least 4 major schisms where you can assume the other person is wrong about everything and dangerous to you, from Israel/Palestine, US privacy rights, US first amendment rights to protest, and US attitudes on policing.
[0] fiction about ml writing controversial news stories that tear communities apart https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/
tootie
Really didn't look like a rock in the video and the target was uninjured.
jasonlotito
> This headline is extremely misleading because it leads you to believe that they are IDing this person because they are a "Pro-Palestinian Student Protester".
It read like a privacy issue. Then I read your comment, and was confused.
> More proper would be "NYPD Bypassed Facial Recognition Ban to ID Rock-Throwing Assailant"
This is inaccurate. The charges were dismissed. At best, it's an alleged rock-throwing assailant.
> In the end, this is not a free speech issue except tangentially; it is a privacy issue.
That's what the original headline suggested to me on first reading. Why did you think the headline was a free speech issue?
That being said, the threat of a government disobeying its own rules and policies is a deterrent to free speech.
andrewla
If it is a privacy issue, why mention that he was a "Pro-Palestinian Student Protester"? That does not seem relevant at all; it's just a personal description, like saying "NYPD Bypassed Facial Recognition Ban to ID Red-headed Person". The headline is intended to emphasize that fact and imply without stating that the facial recognition is being used to suppress free speech. I find it hard to believe that you can read it any other way.
At the time that they used the software, the charges had not been dismissed. They were looking for a person that in their eyes had committed a crime. This is right and proper; they don't have the right to hang the dude on the spot, they can arrest him and refer him for trial, which is what they did.
> That being said, the threat of a government disobeying its own rules and policies is a deterrent to free speech.
Why?
mtalantikite
> why mention that he was a "Pro-Palestinian Student Protester"? That does not seem relevant at all
Because it seems highly unlikely that if I were to walk out of my apartment right now, walk down to the waterfront, and throw a rock at a group of people sitting at Marsha P Johnson park that the NYPD would even respond to the call. Never mind getting a fire marshal involved to run my photo through a facial recognition program. They've got more important things to deal with. (I'd also, of course, never do this).
This was a protest movement that was a national story and included congressional hearings, so it does seem relevant to have the context.
chaps
"This is right and proper"
FirmwareBurner
>More proper would be "NYPD Bypassed Facial Recognition Ban to ID Rock-Throwing Assailant"
You're preaching to the choir, everything is partisan now, including crime:
If the perp throwing rocks is in support of my political views then he's a victim of the fascist regime, but if he's from the opposite camp, he's a criminal fascist that's a threat to society. It's wild how people now can't come to a bipartisan agreement that attacking people with rocks is assault and should be punished, and instead need to make it a partisan issue where it's somehow justifiable depending on the politics. Same how they tried to justify burning down a certain brand of cars is legal because in their mind they're "fighting fascism" by keying a Jewish guy's Cybertruck in NYC.
That's how the media and people have brainrotted themselves to see things. There's no bipartisanship, it's all propaganda for manipulation and engagement.
Which is why I tend to flag such topics as they're low quality rage bait that many people bite. I come here for technical opinions not to read MSM propaganda.
mc32
Indeed. Enhancements are used too freely. They should only be an option in egregious cases, otherwise just charge people with the actual crime they committed.
I don’t like how enhancements are distributed like candy.
some_random
The trouble is that depending on the political affiliations of the people receiving the enhancement, you'll get different groups of people reflexively supporting or denouncing the system.
femiagbabiaka
How many rights will we be asked to give up in order to squash anti-war sentiment?
ethagnawl
It's _wild_. Find/replace using the name of any other country (Italy, France, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia -- take your pick!) and _every last person_ in the US would say, "Wait. What? Why are _we_ sacrificing _our_ liberty over ... that?".
Also, _so many_ of these people falling all over themselves to "support" this particular country are un-repentantly racist against this (larger) group of people. I have a rather working class background, know many of these people (cops and firefighters, as it relates) and have had the bad fortune of hearing their "jokes".
flyinglizard
It works the other way around, too. No one would bat an eye for what’s going on in Gaza if not done by Israel. Where are the protests to stop the onslaught of Islamists on the Druze minority in Syria that is happening right this moment? So yes, Israel is singled out but it’s done by both its supporters and detractors alike.
andrewla
I comment elsewhere that he was not ID'ed because he was a protester, he was ID'ed because he threw a rock at someone.
It's the same question though; how many right will we be asked to give up in order to catch rock-throwing assailants.
I lean pretty heavily on privacy not being a right in the direct sense or the penumbral sense. That a company sells a product that uses facial identification is to me not super relevant. If they had shown the photo around the department, and to random people at the university, and someone said "I recognize that guy, he's so-and-so" then there would simply be no problem here. Similarly if someone was just browsing through old yearbook photos and recognized the face. The computer system allows this to happen at larger scale, but the same basic thing.
conception
It’s the same basic thing as a spear being the same as a nuclear weapon. “They both kill people!”
Walking around with a photo versus walking around with a hundred million photos and asking everyone simultaneously should not be considered about the basic same thing.
tptacek
It is very bad to throw spears at people, despite the existence of nuclear weapons.
regularjack
The fact that you can do it in a larger scale is the problem
stefan_
This guy was accused of hurling a rock at a protester, it seems we are trying to defend the right to peaceful protest?
Like, this guy was identified off video of him throwing a rock at a protester that hit them in the face. By all accounts this is someone who is trying to violently suppress peoples rights. That he got off on police misconduct in the investigation is a loss to society, no matter how many waxing words try to twist him into being a "protester violated in his rights".
thisislife2
That's a separate issue. The US is an exception where evidence that is collected illegally (see 'fruit of the poisonous tree' - https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree ) is not allowed in court. Thus, US law enforcements have come up with many creative means (like Parallel Construction - https://restorethe4th.com/our-new-brief-on-parallel-construc... ) to hide the fact that evidence was collected illegally. If you want justice to be done in the US, you want US law enforcement to comply with the law. Otherwise it could result in a miscarriage of justice - the guilty may escape because of police misconduct or innocents may be persecuted by the violation of their rights. This loophole used seems to be the grey area of the law. But loopholes too are slippery slopes in the law and shouldn't exist.
tracker1
I definitely see both sides in this... it's a bad use of resources, that I'm not completely convinced police should be barred from all access to, if it exists... on the flip side, the context of protecting an a-hole throwing rocks at a protest irks me as well.
I'm actually against parallel construction and feel that is far more dangerous than a lot of other activities in that it literally prevents you from knowing your true accuser in terms of laying out a defense/confrontation in court.
This whole story is just full of bad guys all around to a large extent.
toast0
> That he got off on police misconduct in the investigation is a loss to society
There'a a balance though. I think that allowing police misconduct would be a larger loss to society.
When the state loses winable criminal cases because of police misconduct, it should be motivation at multiple levels to avoid such misconduct in the future.
mattnewton
I don't read it as a peaceful protest issue, I read it as police are breaking privacy laws over a Palestinian protestor specifically; as far as we know they aren't doing this to investigate other violent crime in NYC. I agree this is sloppy policework and an unnecessary loss to society as a result.
mardifoufs
Okay and? They still bypassed a ban to do that. I guess we can just bypass any law, checks and balances whenever we really feel like someone might have committed a crime.
i_love_retros
What's happening in Gaza isn't a war, it's an invasion and attempted genocide by Israel.
flyinglizard
No, this is war. Not a quagmire like Iraq or Afghanistan with no end. Rather it’s an old fashioned war like wars have always been before the onset of the failed modern warfare. War until one side stops being a military threat to the other, and it started on October 7th.
regularjack
I don't get why this is downvoted. I'm gonna guess it's because of "attempted"...
noqc
[flagged]
jajuuka
Self defense isn't "you killed 1,200 people of our people so we're going to kill 60,000+ of your people (majority of which are children), destroy any all your hospitals and educational centers and prevent basics like food, water and medical supplies from getting to you."
At what point do you listen to humanitarian organizations and the UN? Amazing that you think 24 people is a genocide but not 60,000+.
hopelite
Considering our government’s practices that most people are not even aware of leading up to WWI and WWI, in addition to the ones people are a bit more aware of regarding the anti-war, pro-peace movements leading up to Vietnam, not to mention what we were forced and willingly gave up following 9/11; most likely the government will abuse us and destroy the very few rights we have in theory.
I am 100% sure of this because the government has been 100% consistent and 100% abusive about this, 100% of the time.
Even the Civil War was clearly orchestrated and the people were abused and not just rights, but the very core Constitution was essentially destroyed and nullified, and what we’ve had since is nothing more than an abusive invalidated social contract upheld my sheer force, delusion, and bribing. The delusion and bribery part being what keeps people from realizing that.
one-note
Quite a lot. The #1 right, for instance: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_t...
Curious why this is downvoted?
mousethatroared
Because the "fire" excuse is a favorite of those who like the 1A when it protects them.
cayley_graph
I've noticed many right-leaning tech types give quite a lot of lip service to free speech when it's about someone getting banned from a mailing list for being an asshole, and not so much when it's the government quashing protest against genocide. I'll personally always defend the idea of free speech, no matter the side.
tracker1
I've been pretty consistent in terms of supporting people saying things and even expressing views I find abhorrent.
I don't consider throwing rocks/bricks at people "free speech". I also don't consider launching fireworks into crowded buildings "free speech" either.
ToValueFunfetti
>I'll personally always defend the idea of free speech, no matter the side.
You attacked the idea of free speech for the other side in the same comment where you said this. I would assume based on reference to government infringements that you're referring to the first amendment as "free speech" if you hadn't specifically emphasized "idea"; conservatives have no real first amendment case, but they do get censored and suppressed by people with power. The idea of free speech is very much still in play when university admin cancels a guest speaker or a forum moderator only allows left-wing or non-political posts. What am I missing here?
noqc
Then you should read the article.
rangestransform
Everybody feels the need to defend government overreach when it’s in their favour. The most famous example is any non-libertarian political leaning with free speech, but it was the same deal with the “left” complaining about Chevron v. USA being overturned when their guy was in power.
pxc
> Curious why this is downvoted?
Probably people reading the article title without reading the headline, not realizing that that it's not only literally about shouting in movie theaters.
But tbh most commenters/voters on this site are reflexively imperialist, which is not surprising for a forum run by (and for!) capitalists in the imperial core. That's doubtless a big factor as well.
noqc
This student threw a rock at a person. I would very much like to see him in prison.
amanaplanacanal
The police should follow the rules laid out for them. If they don't, I would very much like to see them in prison.
noqc
What point of mine do you think you are attacking? The parent comment said that these rights were being given up "in order to squash anti-war sentiment". This was wrong on two counts.
a) The rights were preserved, the assaulter walks free on account of the NYPD's misconduct. The rock throwers have zero cause to be upset, the law protected them from the police overreach successfully.
b) The student was not charged with "anti-war sentiment". He was charged with assault, for throwing rocks at people.
game_the0ry
Once you give the government access to powerful tools, you can be certain they will abuse to maintain their power over you.
andrewla
I comment elsewhere that he was not ID'ed because he was a protester, he was ID'ed because he threw a rock at someone.
It's true in a sense though; if you give the government these tools they will use them to capture offenders and enforce the law. Abuse? I guess, because they are not allowed by law to use these tools. It comes down in my mind to the specifics of why they are disallowed. Is it false positives? Is it an equity issue? Those are the things that would inform my outrage further.
i_love_retros
Just because the police said he threw a rock doesn't mean he threw a rock.
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whatshisface
This argument is "could you rob a bank if it was to feed your family," applied to the police.
unethical_ban
Indeed.
The 2nd amendment and the notion that we have physical power over the government is going to be whittled away as facial recognition and omnipresent government spying via data brokers gives them all the info they need to spy on every citizen, all the time.
AI means they don't only collect all the data they want for when they need it ala NSA 2008, but they can have a robot army of analysts transcribe photos and phone calls instantly and analyze for sentiment, flag for review.
If we don't demand, as a society, that government stay out of the business of the people, and that the military stay out of the business of civil society (ICE/National Guard/Marines), we are in for true evil.
mistrial9
at least in government there are paths to discovery; corporate applications on the other hand..
computegabe
The company used, Clearview AI, collects publicly available imagery. It would be different if the government was providing it. Here's an idea: maybe don't post your photos on social media. Still scary nonetheless.
oefrha
> maybe don't post your photos on social media.
I don’t, I deleted my social media accounts a decade ago and wasn’t into posting my own photos prior to that anyway. But other people can post photos with me/including me and I can’t control that (and since I don’t use social media I don’t even know when they do that).
gl-prod
Whats next? Innocent people don't have anything to hide?
macintux
> Here's an idea: maybe don't post your photos on social media.
Right. Also make sure your friends don't. And your family. Good luck with that.
sorcerer-mar
“Don’t post your photos on social media” is precisely describing a chilling effect on people’s expression, i.e. the exact thing the First Amendment is designed to protect against.
computegabe
If a user is willingly uploading their photos to a private company to be publicly shared, how does 1A apply?
kopecs
I think the suggestion is that the government use of that public data could be such as to create a chilling effect. That is, the upload and interaction of the user with the private company is almost irrelevant: it is just part of the antecedent to the government's conduct.
If you believe the government would only use that data for just purposes then you probably wouldn't then believe that there is a 1A issue. But if you think the government would use it to identify persons at a protest and then take adverse actions against them on the basis of their presence alone (which to be clear, seems distinguished from the immediate instance) you would probably think there is a 1A issue.
sorcerer-mar
You can go do some reading on Third Party Doctrine if you'd like.
SCOTUS ruled there are some instances where private use of a service is 1) effectively necessary for modern life and 2) leaks a huge amount of information about the person, then the government cannot utilize it without a warrant even if handed over or sold willingly by the third party.
I am suggesting that we likely need to expand Third Party Doctrine to things beyond cell tower data because 1) we don't have absolute control over how/where our images are used and associated with our names, and 2) the technology to later affiliate our always-on/always-visible identities (like faces, gaits, or fingerprints) with our names is getting better and better.
You're right that today this is not illegal, but I am pointing out that your argument for "what to do instead" is literally the precise argument for why it should be: it chills protected expression.
actionfromafar
[flagged]
jgalt212
Was this person targeted because of protest activity or criminal activity? To me, therein lies the rub. Cops should have access to such systems to investigate crimes.
null
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neuroelectron
Wow, NYPD is full of people who support Israel?
pbiggar
Yes, the NYPD is genuinely full of cops who support Israel. They have partnerships with Israel, they are trained by Israeli, the NYPD even has an office in Tel Aviv. Check out the training they get: https://jewishcurrents.org/training-nypd-keffiyeh-watermelon...
nroets
The article says he was suspected of hate crime assault. Then the police has a duty to act.
Edit: While I said "duty" I meant that I really hope the that the police investigate all allegations of hate crime assault properly.
null
neuroelectron
Certain animals are more equal than others.
g8oz
"reduced to a misdemeanor of second degree aggravated harassment" so it looks like the charge was exaggerated in the 1st place. The media and authorities tend to portray Zionist provocateurs as the second coming of Anne Frank when they get into trouble. Something similar happened when Israeli soccer hooligans got roughed up in Amsterdam.
maximinus_thrax
The police has absolutely no duty to act whatsoever. See Warren v. District of Columbia.
atoav
So while we are making funny euphemisms I hope I can "bypass ownership laws" to relieve the author of the money on their bank account. The state of journalism in 2025 is such they can't even call a spade a spade.
AlexandrB
Another funny one: "Pro-Palestinian Student Protester" when they mean "Assault Suspect". I don't get why they're trying to associate pro Palestinian protesters with the actions of a few violent actors.
mattnewton
This one I'm not so sure is clearer - the charges were dismissed, and the fact that he was protesting for Palestine was interesting enough to the police to investigate as a potential hate crime, and may have motivated the police to break the facial ID law here, so it seems relevant enough to put in the title.
pbiggar
Can we talk about the fact that such a tool exists? A private company is able to take a photo and identify you. Scary shit!
tantalor
> take a photo and identify you
Actually neither happened. The article says they were not able to find any identifiable information online. They had to use drivers license instead.
> the fire marshal sent links to Clearview AI face search results, an archive of school play photos and another to an archive of high school formal photos. He said he couldn’t find associated social media but offered to get a driver’s license photo for the detective. “We have access to that,” he wrote.
I read the sequence as,
1. They started with a protest video
2. Clearview provided public images of the same person, but no name. It was certainly more identifiable (e.g., their high school).
3. Then somehow they get the driver's license photo. Do they use the original protest video, or the Clearview images? How does this search even work? Nobody knows. Lazy journalism.
As readers, we have no idea if the Clearview search was actually important, or a dead end.
542354234235
I think it might be an error in the article, specifically
>A minute later, the detective sent the fire marshal Ahmed’s name, date of birth and driver’s license number. Within five minutes, the fire marshal replied, “Bingo.”
I believe that is supposed to say that the fire marshal sent the detective the license information. The Fire Marshal was clearly able to find identifiable information online, in the form of multiple high school photos, but was unsuccessful getting a match to any social media accounts. So the facial recognition worked and found matches in Clearview AI’s database of scraped school photos, but not their database of scraped social media photos.
Then the Fire Marshal offered to get a driver’s license photo, and says he has access [presumably to the DMV database]. The fact the about a minute later, license information was passed, sounds like a search was run by the Fire Marshal, a match popped up, and he sent it to the detective. But it could be that the detective used high school photos (being higher quality and full front facing) to run a search against the DMV records (which the police have access to with “permission from supervisors”) but according to other articles about the NYPD in general, it doesn't seem like that are able to run facial recognition on DMV records.
Either way, I think the ID came directly from the information the Fire Marshal passed and the Judge said as much.
>The NYPD would not have identified Ahmed but for the FDNY’s Clearview AI search and accessing the DMV photo, the judge indicated in her ruling
ge96
[flagged]
soulofmischief
It doesn't matter what I do if friends or family are posting me online as well.
moomin
Try taking a photo of your partner first thing in the morning and posting it online. You’ll probably figure out the distinction.
null
>A city fire marshal used FDNY’s access to a facial recognition software to help NYPD detectives identify a pro-Palestinian protester at Columbia University, circumventing policies that tightly restrict the Police Department’s use of the technology.
Why does the fire department need access to run facial recognition?