The City Council will vote on a bill Thursday that would require the police department to release more information about how it uses captured cell phone data and facial recognition technology.
The bill would require the NYPD to disclose data on those and other surveillance tools and develop guidelines on how it uses them.
“Today, NYPD surveillance often is no better than digitized stop-and-frisk,” said Albert Fox Cahn, director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. “These programs are biased, broken, and deeply damaging to a democratic society.”
The bill currently has 36 sponsors in the Council, which means it’s almost certain to pass.
“New Yorkers deserve to know the type of surveillance that the NYPD uses and its impacts on communities,” said Council Speaker Corey Johnson in a written statement.
A spokeswoman for Mayor de Blasio said the administration is “reviewing the bill.” NYPD spokeswoman Sgt. Jessica McRorie said the department does not support the bill in its current form because it “seems to be designed to help criminals and terrorists thwart efforts to stop them.”
“The bill, as currently proposed would literally require the NYPD to advertise on its website the covert means and equipment used by undercover officers who risk their lives every day,” she said. “No reasonable citizen of New York City would ever support that.”
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