NYC subway will use face scanning to track down non-payers

Problems with fare evasion on the New York subway forced the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to install the software. AI Surveillance at various stations to track passengers who evade paying a ticket.

According to NBC News, the MTA said in a fare evasion report that, as of May 2023, tracking software was being used at seven undisclosed subway stations and eight physical fare barriers, with plans for “another two dozen or so seasons.” ” finally. years and more.

The MTA estimated that the company lost $285 million in 2022 due to subway fare evasion, according to the report, which did not include the name of the third-party tracking software used by the authorities. MTA spokeswoman Joana Flores confirmed to NBC News that Spanish AI developer AWAAIT has created software that can detect and send photos of non-payers to the smartphones of employees of nearby stations.

MTA communications director Tim Minton told the publication that the software was used “primarily as a scoring tool” to determine how many passengers are evading fares and what methods they use to bypass turnstiles. Early trials of the system have already provided authorities with some useful data: according to the MTA report, fare evasion is most common between 3 and 4 p.m. (which coincides with the end of school), and exiting through emergency doors was the most popular escape route. , is used in more than 50 percent of reported cases. Minton says video footage captured by the software through the transit systems’ 10,000 surveillance cameras is stored on the MTA’s servers “for a limited period of time.”