In this session, S.T.O.P. and Amnesty International will discuss New York City’s sprawling network of surveillance cameras with facial recognition technology. Using publicly available data from Amnesty’s Decode NYC Surveillance initiative and S.T.O.P.’s 2021 Surveillance Census, the interactive panel will feature demonstrations of both organizations’ public and private surveillance camera mapping projects.
Panelists will share their methodologies and data findings, revealing how the map of NYC surveillance cameras strikingly reflects structural racism, segregation, and the oversurveillance and discriminatory policing of BIPOC communities. S.T.O.P. and Amnesty will also discuss the racial biases and inaccuracy of facial recognition software and the growing national movement against its use.
Moderated by S.T.O.P.'s Albert Fox Cahn.
Panelists:
Sophie Dyer is a Tactical Research Adviser at Amnesty International's Crisis Evidence Lab. Sophie works at the busy intersection of visual, participatory, and data-informed research. She is also interested in how Amnesty International communicates its more complex findings via digital formats that are inclusive and accessible. Beyond Amnesty, Sophie is a founding organiser of the Feminist Open Source Investigations Group and one-half of the citizen science project, open-weather. Sophie sits on the Journal of Digital War editorial board and is an external examiner for the Non Linear Narrative Masters at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK), The Hague.
Matt Mahmoudi is a Doctoral Candidate in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge, where he researches Urban Technologies, Governmentality, and integration in the City. He is particularly interested in the possibilities and challenges these present for refugees and migrants. He is Program Lead at The Whistle Project, a digital human rights platform based out of the Centre of Governance and Human Rights. Matt co-convenes the 'Power and Vision: The Camera as Political Technology' research group at CRASSH, and coordinates the Cambridge branch of Amnesty International's Digital Verification Corps.
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