Project NOLA reopens network to New Orleans Police, LFR alerts still suspended

New Orleans-based Project NOLA’s sprawling network of community installed surveillance cameras is once again streaming directly into the hands of New Orleans police (NOPD), restoring a level of real-time monitoring that had been cut off earlier this fall.

The nonprofit organization behind the system, which oversees more than 5,000 high-definition cameras across the city, reinstated NOPD’s remote access after a series of meetings with department leadership.

The move comes as the City Council continues to wrestle with how, or whether, to regulate the use of facial recognition and other advanced surveillance tools tied to the network.

Project NOLA suspended NOPD’s remote access in September after the department released homicide footage to a television production company, a decision that prompted public backlash and concerns about victim privacy.

During the suspension, officers could still request footage, but they could not monitor the cameras live from their devices. The nonprofit’s founder, Bryan Lagarde, described the restriction as necessary to preserve community trust until the department addressed the misuse.

The freeze was the most significant disruption in the long-standing relationship between the private camera network and the city’s police force.

The reinstatement followed an in-person meeting on November 4 between NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick and Project NOLA leadership. Remote viewing and playback are now restored, though live facial recognition (LFR) alerts – one of the most controversial features previously available through the system – remain disabled.

Lagarde said that any future changes involving facial recognition will depend on explicit city policy and assurances that its use will be tightly controlled.

The nonprofit is also in discussions with NOPD about adding new tools, including a vehicle-intrusion alert system designed to detect unauthorized cars entering restricted areas such as pedestrianized portions of Bourbon Street.

The timing of the restored access intersects with an unresolved political fight at City Hall. Earlier this year, councilmembers proposed an ordinance that would formally expand and regulate police use of facial recognition technology. The measure would have allowed NOPD and contracted partners, including Project NOLA, to use real-time facial recognition under new reporting and oversight rules.

That proposal stalled amid public criticism and questions about how deeply the police had already integrated real-time facial recognition into their operations without public debate.

Councilmembers postponed the vote this fall, citing the need for further legal review and clearer answers about how facial-recognition alerts had been used in practice.

Community groups and civil rights advocates, already wary of the city’s surveillance footprint, used the pause to press for stronger guardrails or an outright ban on live use of the technology.

For now, New Orleans’ facial recognition policy remains governed by a 2022 framework that allows limited, after-the-fact searches in serious investigations but prohibits live scanning of crowds or real-time alerts.

The renewed access to Project NOLA’s cameras places the debate back into sharp focus. While the nonprofit has long argued that the cameras help solve crimes and deter violence, critics say a privately operated surveillance network embedded in day-to-day policing poses deep accountability problems.

Because Project NOLA is not a government entity, its data management practices fall outside many public records requirements and oversight mechanisms that apply to city-run systems.

The release of homicide footage to a television production, the event that triggered the September suspension, highlighted how easily the line between public safety and entertainment can blur when surveillance is controlled by a private operator.

The City Council is expected to revisit the issue in the coming months, though no date has been set for a renewed vote. Council members have indicated they want any surveillance ordinance to address not only facial recognition but the broader relationship between the city and private camera networks.

Civil rights Advocates are pushing for mandatory audits, public reporting, and clear prohibitions on using facial recognition matches as sole evidence for arrests.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  facial recognition  |  law enforcement  |  live facial recognition  |  New Orleans  |  police  |  Project NOLA  |  real-time biometrics  |  video surveillance