New York City relies on AI-supported scanners in a new offer to keep weapons out of the subway system, but the pilot program launched on Friday is already facing skepticism among passengers and civil rights activists are threatening to sue, saying the searches are unconstitutional.
The Evolv scanner — a sleek-looking gun detector that uses artificial intelligence to search passengers for firearms and knives — was on display at a subway station in Lower Manhattan, where 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 prefer if we didn’t have to be scanned? Yes,” he added. “But if you talked to the average subway rider, they would tell you they don’t want guns on their subway system, and if that means having to put scanners in, then bring on the scanners.”
Adams, a self-described “techie,” has stressed that the scanners are still in the experimental phase. The machines, already in use at baseball stadiums and other venues, will be deployed at a small number of stations and only a fraction of riders will be asked to go through them. The city has not signed a contract with Evolv, and Adams said other companies are welcome to present their own gun detection innovations.
The scanners, which are about 6 feet tall, bear the city police logo and a multi-colored light display. If a weapon is detected, an alert is sent to a tablet monitored by two NYPD officers. The system is not actually designed to alert everyday objects such as cell phones and laptops – but a reporter’s iPad case triggered it on Friday.
The scanners immediately sparked protests from civil rights activists. The New York Civil Liberties Union and the Legal Aid Society announced they would sue the city if the technology was rolled out across the board, claiming the searches violated drivers’ constitutional rights.
“City officials have acknowledged that these scanners are primarily designed to counteract the ‘perception’ of some riders that they are unsafe on the subway – this is not a justifiable basis for a constitutional violation,” said NYCLU attorney Daniel Lambright.
The scanners also raised concerns among passengers, who said it was neither practical nor plausible to subject millions of commuters to security checks.
“It’s not going to work,” said 25-year-old Dre Thomas, shaking his head at the device. “It would have to be installed at every point in the subway. I don’t see how that would be possible. It seems to me like another way to waste taxpayers’ money.”
Wyatt Hotis, 29, said the scanners were a good idea but “not the root of the problem” because people being pushed onto the tracks posed a greater safety risk. Hotis instead suggested adding railings and barriers to the platforms and deploying more police to monitor them.
Margaret Bortner, one of the first passengers to go through the scanner, described the 30-second process as painless – but saw no need to do it at every station.
“There are more important things that officials should be doing,” she said.
Although there were incidents that made headlines, such as a shooting in 2022 on a Brooklyn train that injured 10 people, crime in the New York City subway system has declined in recent years. Overall, violent crime in the system is rare, and the cars and stations are generally as safe as any other public place.
According to police data, crime in the subway has fallen by 8% this year through July 21 compared to the same period in 2023. Last year, there were five murders in the subway, according to police, compared to 10 the year before.
Adams has long discussed the possibility of adding gun detectors to the subway system. This week he suggested that “eventually every turnstile will be able to detect if someone is carrying a gun,” but that could require the city to deploy thousands of police officers to respond to gun alerts.
Experts have also expressed doubts about the feasibility of incorporating the technology into the city’s sprawling subway system, which includes 472 stations with multiple entrances and exits. Fulton Center, the subway hub where the mayor spoke, illustrates the challenges of deploying the detectors in a system that aims to be as accessible as possible.
There are multiple entrances spread out over several city blocks, with dozens of turnstiles used by up to 300,000 passengers a day. During rush hour, they often sprint to catch a train. Anyone who wanted to bring a weapon without going through a scanner could simply walk to another entrance or a nearby station.
Evolv CEO Peter George himself has admitted that subways are “not a good use case” for the scanners, according to the Daily News.
Evolv said its scanning system uses artificial intelligence to screen up to 3,600 people per hour, quickly detecting the “signatures” of firearms, knives and explosives without alerting cell phones and other metal devices.
The company has faced a barrage of lawsuits in recent years, and there have also been federal investigations into its marketing practices. Evolv 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.”
At the beginning of the year, investors submitted Class action lawsuitaccused the company’s executives of exaggerating the devices’ capabilities and claimed that “Evolv does not reliably detect knives or weapons.” The company has claims that the company was the target of a disinformation campaign by people who “have an incentive to discredit the company”.
New York City has experimented with a number of security measures to ensure the protection of its vast subway system. In 2005, the NYPD conducted a pilot project to study the feasibility of using explosive detection technology in the subways.
Then the department began conducting random searches of the bags of people entering the subway. This measure, too, was introduced with much fanfare, but such bag searches, although not completely abolished, are now rare.
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