What is the value of good communication? For Mayor Adams, the value is obviously much higher than many of us thought.
With Adams’ controversial attempt to install scanners in the subway through a scandal-plagued startup, New Yorkers are asking new questions about how the self-proclaimed tech enthusiast chooses the technology he offers to the public. And we’re still waiting for credible answers from Hizzoner about what lines he’s not willing to cross.
You’ve probably seen the headlines by now: New York City police officials have rolled out a shiny subway scanner, promising that the gadget will finally ensure public safety. But once you look past the technological theater, it’s hard to understand why anyone, least of all the mayor and the New York City police, would think this is a credible policy.
First, the cost of the project is staggering. A single Evolv detector costs $125,000 to rent for four years, enough to buy dozens of metal detectors from other vendors. The mayor was quick to boast that he saw the project as a step toward the day when “every turnstile will be able to detect whether someone is carrying a weapon,” but he failed to mention that equipping New York’s thousands of turnstiles in this way would cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Spending a fortune on metal detectors that not only do nothing to improve the security of the crowded platforms where New Yorkers can be pushed, but even appear to be bad at detecting the weapons they are supposed to find.
The scanners in question are made by a controversial startup called Evolv, which the lawsuits allege developed its own marketing claims beyond what the facts supported.
The company made a splash a few years ago when it claimed its AI software could detect guns in incredible ways—largely because it couldn’t. At least, that’s the claim in shareholder lawsuits that accuse the company of defrauding investors by making promises its technology couldn’t deliver.
Independent audits by researchers at the trade journal IPVM have shed light on the scandal, showing that the artificial intelligence in Evolv’s sensors wasn’t as smart as it was claimed. Instead of using sophisticated software to identify weapons, the system simply looked for metal tubes. Sure, metal tubes are found in gun barrels, but they’re also found in laptop hinges, umbrellas, and countless other everyday objects.
The result is a scanner that’s not much better than the much cheaper metal detectors that New Yorkers already know would be a nightmare to install on the subway, turning the morning train ride into an excruciatingly slow TSA checkpoint.
Investors aren’t the only ones pushing back against these dodgy scanners. Federal regulators, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, have all set their sights on the company.
And those who have dealt with Evolv in public aren’t much more positive about the company. In a recent lawsuit, a New York student whose school uses Evolv sued the company, claiming that its scanners failed to detect the weapon that was used to attack him.
It’s all part of an expensive policing plan by the mayor, who has spent his term spreading public safety messages through publicity stunts. But the costs of those publicity stunts are becoming unbearable—not just the money wasted on a scandal-plagued startup—but also the impact these schemes have on New Yorkers, eroding our rights and invading our lives, with nothing to show for it.
These metal detectors mean more stops, more searches, and more potential for police violence. The mayor may think this is a harmless publicity stunt, but the harm to New Yorkers who must fear invasive, error-prone stops and searches to get to school or work is far greater than the enormous amount of money wasted on this endeavor.
It’s time for Adams to admit what we all already know: subway scanners are an evolutionary dead end.
Cahn is the founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, or STOP, a civil rights and privacy advocacy group based in New York. Weber is a senior at Barnard College, where she is majoring in political science, human rights, and classical studies. She was a summer communications intern with the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP).
