New York City Moves to AI-Powered Scanners In a new show The U.S. government has launched a pilot program to keep guns out of the subway system, but the pilot program launched Friday has already been met with skepticism from riders and a threat of a lawsuit from civil liberties advocates who say the searches are unconstitutional.
The Evolv scanner — a sleek gun-detection device that uses artificial intelligence to search for guns and knives among passengers — was on display at a lower Manhattan subway station as Mayor Eric Adams announced the 30-day trial.
“This is good technology,” Adams said at the Fulton Center near the World Trade Center.
“Would I have preferred that we not have to be scanned? Yes,” he added. “But if you talk to the average subway rider, they’ll say they don’t want guns on their subway system, and if that means scanners, they should bring scanners.”
Adams, a self-described “tech geek,” stressed that the scanners are still in a pilot phase. The devices, already in use at baseball stadiums and other venues, will be deployed at a small number of stations and only a fraction of passengers will be required to pass through them. The city has not signed a contract with Evolve, and Adams said other companies are welcome to offer their own gun detection innovations.
The scanners, which are about 6 feet (1.8 meters) tall, feature the city’s police department logo and a multicolored light display. When a weapon is detected, an alert is sent to a tablet monitored by two NYPD officers. The system isn’t supposed to alert you to everyday items, like phones and laptops — though a reporter’s iPad case raised that alarm Friday.
The scanners sparked immediate protests from civil liberties advocates. The New York Civil Liberties Union and the Legal Aid Society said they would sue the city if the technology became widely deployed, alleging that the searches violate passengers’ constitutional rights.
“City officials have admitted that these scanners are primarily intended to combat some riders’ ‘perceptions’ that they are unsafe on the subway — and that is not a justifiable basis for violating the Constitution,” said Daniel Lambright, a lawyer for the New York City Civil Liberties Union.
The scanners have also raised concerns among passengers who say it is neither practical nor reasonable to subject millions of passengers to security checks.
“It wouldn’t work,” said Dre Thomas, 25, shaking his head at the device. “It should be at every subway stop. I don’t see how that would be possible. It seems to me like another waste of taxpayer money.”
White Hotes, 29, said he thinks the scanners are a good idea but “not the root of the problem” when pushing people onto the tracks is a bigger safety concern. Hotes instead suggested adding barriers and curbs to the platforms, along with more officers to patrol them.
Margaret Portner, among the first passengers to undergo the scanner, described the 30-second process as painless — but she didn’t see a need for it at every station.
“There are more important things officers should be doing,” she said.
Although there have been notable incidents such as Shooting 2022 In the Brooklyn train crash that injured 10 people, crime rates in the New York City subway have been declining in recent years. In general, violent crime in the system is rare, and train cars and stations are generally as safe as any other public place.
So far this year, metro crime is down 8% through July 21 compared to the same period in 2023, according to police data. Last year, there were five metro murders, down from 10 the year before, according to police.
Adams has long discussed adding gun detectors to the subway system. He suggested this week that “every turnstile will eventually be able to determine if someone is carrying a weapon,” but doing so would require the city to deploy thousands of police officers to respond to gun alerts.
Experts have also expressed skepticism about the feasibility of adding the technology to the city’s sprawling subway system, which has 472 stations with multiple routes in and out. The Fulton Center, the subway hub where the mayor spoke, illustrates the challenges of deploying the detectors in a system designed to be as accessible as possible.
There are multiple entrances spread over several blocks, with dozens of turnstiles used by up to 300,000 passengers a day. During rush hour, they are often running to catch a train. Anyone who wants to bring a weapon without going through a scanner can simply walk to another entrance or a nearby station.
Evolv CEO Peter George himself has admitted that the subway is “not a great use case” for scanners, According to the Daily News.
Evolve said its scanning system uses artificial intelligence to screen up to 3,600 people per hour, quickly detecting the “signatures” of guns, knives and explosives without alerting cell phones and other metal devices.
The company has faced a series of lawsuits in recent years, along with federal investigations into its marketing practices. Evolve told investors last year that it had been contacted by the Federal Trade Commission, and in February it said it had been contacted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as part of a “fact-finding investigation.”
Earlier this year, investors submitted Class action lawsuitThe company accused executives of overstating the devices’ capabilities and claimed that “Evolv does not reliably detect knives or guns.” claimed It is being subjected to a misinformation campaign by those “motivated to discredit the company.”
New York City has experimented with a variety of security measures to protect its massive subway system. In 2005, the New York City Police Department ran a pilot project to test the feasibility of using explosive detection technology in the subway.
The administration then began randomly searching people’s bags as they entered the subway system. That effort, too, was launched with much fanfare, but such bag checks—while not entirely eliminated—are rare today.
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