(The AEGIS Alliance) – After being pushed to take action by new laws, the New York City Police Department has publicized a full stock of the myriad spying devices it makes use of to surveil the general public.
it’s been well-known for years that the NYPD has a healthy battle chest with regards to surveillance gear. Indeed, the city that endured the 9/11 terrorist attacks has seemingly adopted a permissive perspective to invasive authorities oversight, and it additionally has probably the most well-funded police agencies within the United States (amounting to billions of dollars). Yet a full and clear accounting of the force’s spying efforts has widely been absent until now.
The legal guidelines around disclosing this info that was altered last year during the summertime with the passage of the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology, or the POST Act for short, that necessitates a fully public stock of the city’s spying devices. This inventory consists of an overview of the policies and procedures about the gear’s use, in addition to its data protection and retention processes. The legislation also necessitates a public remark period that enables city residents an opportunity to answer the draft policies around their usage. The legislation resembles one instituted in Seattle a number of years ago, which had relatable participatory and oversight mechanisms built into it.
In accordance with the POST Act, the NYPD’s Monday update on its website includes an inventory of its spying gear, along with a set of draft policies for the surveillance instruments it deploys.
“The NYPD is committed to increasing transparency related to the use of surveillance technology within the bounds of responsive, efficient, and effective policing,” a recent web page states.
“The impact and use policies developed by the Department work to find a fair balance between the benefits provided through the use of technology and protecting individual privacy.”
The “public feedback” facet of the brand new policy is defined as such:
“The impact and use policies will be available for public comment for forty-five (45) calendar days. At the end of the 45-day period, the feedback will be collected and recommendations for revising the draft policies will be considered prior to finalization. The final impact and use policies will be published publically by April 11, 2021.”
The POST Act was passed in June of 2020, which, if you’ll bear in mind, was not a good time for the nation’s big cities. Indeed, with the horrific police killing of George Floyd a mere a number of weeks earlier, many cities, together with NYC—had been a hotbed of discontent, protests, and violence. New York City Council members, desperate to legislate their approach out of what more and more appeared just like the collapse of social order in America’s largest metropolis, agreed to some modest reforms for the city police department.
So what’s within the NYPD’s spying arsenal? You can search for yourself, however, all the same, old suspects are there: CCTV techniques, drones, facial recognition, license plate readers, ShotSpotter, cell-site simulators, and geo-fencing instruments, together with a lot more. Now you residents will have the chance to learn in regards to the police department’s instruments and procedures after which they can tell the NYPD just precisely what you think of about them.
Kyle James Lee – The AEGIS Alliance – This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
