Safety equipment manufacturer Evolv Technology’s marketing claims have earned it a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit, international scrutiny — and potentially a new contract with the City of Syracuse. City of Syracuse officials are considering contracting with Evolv to provide AI-powered meta l detectors to make entry to City Hall “both more sound and effective,” said mayor’s office spokesperson Sol Muñoz. Currently, City Hall visitors have to remove small metallic items from their pockets before stepping through a metal detector. Small items often trigger false alarms, Muñoz said. Evolv’s products are capable of measuring the density of metallic objects, eliminating the need for individuals to remove small items or send their bags through a separate machine, she added. “The goal is to reduce congestion at building entrances and streamline the process while at the same time enhancing the ability to identify weapons and allow visitors to pass through sensors without needing to remove personal items from their pockets,” Muñoz said. However, Evolv has been the subject of much scrutiny. Independent evaluators and experts for years have sounded the alarm on the company and its lofty assurances. Its track record has earned news reports, investigations and lawsuits. Evolv has been sued by the FTC for making “misleading marketing claims” and investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Evolv’s weapons detectors enhanced by artificial intelligence can be found at the entrances of hundreds of schools, sports stadiums, and events centers across the country, including in Central New York. The company claims that its products leverage AI to streamline security checks and reduce entry lines.  Evolv did not respond to emails from Central Current to respond to its reporting. On Monday, members of the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, the Syracuse Peace Council and others again are holding a press conference at City Hall to draw attention to “Melt the Contracts” legislation. The proposal would block the city from entering, renewing or extending contracts with companies connected to the White House’s federal immigration crackdown.  Evolv’s products have been designated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as an anti-terrorism technology. Syracuse DSA member Genevieve Garcia Kendrick in a statement to Central Current said that DSA opposes the city contracting with Evolv, whose products “are squarely within the federal homeland security and counter-terrorism framework.” “Syracuse should not adopt technology that deepens federal surveillance pipelines,” said Garcia Kendrick. ‘Stupid devices’ Evolv’s scanners use sensors and AI to determine whether a metallic item is a weapon, just as the city described. The systems allow customers to adjust the scanners’ sensitivity, so that users can determine how reactive they want the detectors to be. But critics say there’s more nuance to weapons screening than Evolv lets on. Nikita Ermolaev, a research engineer at the independent tech evaluation firm Internet Protocol Video Market, said Evolv’s technology comes at a cost.  Ermolaev and his colleagues at IPVM have for years attempted to acquire and audit Evolv’s products, but the company has resisted that independent testing. The American Civil Liberties Union has equated Evolv’s resistance to independent auditing to Flock Safety’s own stonewalling of IPVM’s testing. Evolv on its website has denied dodging independent testing, citing approval granted by DHS and testing against the United Kingdom’s National Protective Security Authority standards.  Much of Evolv’s growth occurred during surging mass shooting incidents in schools across the United States, capitalizing on local communities’ appetites for enhanced security at school entrances, Ermolaev said. Evolv was able to portray conventional metal detectors as “stupid devices,” Ermolaev said.  Evolv appears to have created a problem that its product now solves, Ermolaev said. However, minor adjustments to common metal detectors can emulate Evolv’s products at a fraction of the price, Ermolaev said, which IPVM has previously demonstrated. The Nashville Banner in 2025 reported that, at their lowest sensitivity settings, Evolv detectors’ sensors can flag large items like assault rifles, but may miss small weapons like knives and pistols. At their highest settings, Evolv’s equipment can pick up small weaponry, but would likely flag all other metallic items passing through. “If… this device false alarms on metallic objects such as cell phones, what exactly is the difference between this and a metal detector?” said Ermolaev. “Except for, you know, a substantial price difference.” ‘No red flags’ The city’s Surveillance Technology Working Group, which vets proposed surveillance technology, briefly discussed the weapons detectors in January and February. The group ultimately determined Evolv’s weapons detectors didn’t meet the group’s criteria for surveillance technology, exempting the proposed tool from undergoing further review. On Feb. 10, an Evolv representative virtually presented to the group the company’s “concealed weapons detection” system.  Before Evolv’s presentation, City Facilities Manager Tony Williams, Deputy Mayor Corey Driscoll Dunham, and SPD Lieutenant Brian Williams visited a school in the Baldwinsville City School District to “see the technology in person,” according to minutes from the technology group’s meeting. Williams called the detectors “promising compared to similar systems,” though it’s unclear which, if any, similar systems the city or the working group have considered. While a Syracuse police spokesperson has not responded to a list of questions from Central Current about Evolv, the meeting minutes show the department weighed in on the technology:  “[SPD] has done their own research into the system, no red flags,” the minutes state. But a long list of controversies have followed Evolv.  The Utica City School District removed Evolv’s weapons detection systems from Thomas R. Proctor High School after the company’s AI-powered tool failed to detect a seven-inch knife that a student brought into the school. That student later used that knife to stab another student multiple times. The victim later sued the school. Utica schools had paid $370,000 toward a $4 million contract to place Evolv scanners in 13 of its schools, with New York state grants subsidizing the rest of the agreement. Before the stabbing, Evolv’s weapon detection system failed to detect an off-duty law enforcement officer’s service weapon, according to reporting from The Intercept. When district leadership contacted Evolv about the incidents, the company instructed the school to increase the sensitivity settings of the weapons detection system — resulting in the system errantly flagging a seven-year-old’s lunch box as a bomb. The school district eventually opted to replace Evolv’s systems in its high schools with metal detectors and x-ray bag scanners akin to the current security system at the entrance of Syracuse’s City Hall.  Following the Utica stabbing, and the company’s chronic resistance to independent vetting from groups like IPVM, the Federal Trade Commission in 2024 sued Evolv for “knowingly” and “repeatedly” engaging in “unlawful acts” through “misleading marketing claims.”  Evolv settled the suit, agreeing to stop “making unsupported claims about its products’ ability to detect weapons by using artificial intelligence,” according to an FTC press release. The suit also compelled Evolv to give certain K-12 school customers the option to cancel their contracts, which the FTC said typically lock customers into multi-year deals. The company was later also subjected to an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into Evolv’s claims about its products.  “If both the FTC and SEC are investigating you, you’re doing something wrong,” Ermolaev said. “I don’t think you can spin it in any other way.”  When Evolv’s detectors were subjected to independent testing, the detectors failed to detect large knives 42% of the time. Those results, found by the National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security, were not made public until the BBC made a public records request to the NCS4 for records related to the testing.  The surveillance technology group did not discuss those results or other controversies because those discussions are reserved for technologies that the group has determined it will be reviewing, Muñoz said.  Syracuse police, city staff and the Common Council are responsible for vetting the technology, Muñoz said.  Working group member Daniel Schwarz, a senior privacy technology strategist at the New York Civil Liberties Union, said that he flagged Evolv’s litany of incidents to his colleagues before their January meeting. Schwarz was unable to attend the group’s February meeting, when the group voted 7-1 to exempt Evolv’s technology from a review. Though the working group won’t be vetting Evolv, Schwarz said “the efficiency issues, the potential for errors, the misleading practices, the FTC actions” warrant the mayor’s office’s scrutiny.  “I think that should be plenty of red flags that should caution the city from entering into an overpriced contract with the vendor, and question what security practice they should utilize instead, and technologies like regular metal scanners,” Schwarz said. City officials did not answer questions about whether they were aware of IPVM’s video that claims to show how the settings on a common metal detector can be adjusted to emulate the purported advantages of Evolv’s systems at a “90% lower price.”  Nor did the city directly answer questions about whether it was comfortable contracting with a company found by the FTC to have knowingly and repeatedly engaged in “unlawful acts.” “The review process is ongoing,” Muñoz said, “and no final determination has been made.”  The post City considering ‘weapons detection’ tech from company connected to Utica stabbing, FTC lawsuit appeared first on Central Current. ...read more read less