Testimony by Comptroller Lander on NYPD’s Implementation of the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) ACT Before the New York City Council Committees on Public Safety and Technology

Thank you to Chair Gutierrez, Chair Hanks, and Members of the Committees on Technology and Public Safety for convening this important hearing on the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) implementation of the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act and providing me the opportunity to testify.

As Chief Accountability Officer, the Comptroller’s Office provides transparency and oversight of New York City agencies to promote integrity, strengthen trust, enable assessment, and identify opportunities to improve municipal operations to better serve New Yorkers. Technology offers powerful tools to increase government efficiency, but we must keep a close eye on the use of technologies that pose risks to democracy, privacy, and equity.

As a City Council member, I proudly co-sponsored and voted for the POST Act, with the goal to protect our civil rights and liberties through greater transparency of the NYPD’s acquisition and deployment of new surveillance technology. I support the bills on today’s calendar sponsored by Councilmembers Amanda Farias, Crystal Hudson, and Julie Won to ensure that the NYPD fulfills the spirit and letter of the POST Act.

The legislation being introduced today is responsive to the concerns raised by an investigation conducted by the Inspector General for the NYPD in their November 2022 report.

As the Inspector General’s report noted, the NYPD has failed to publish the requisite Impact and Use Policies (IUP) for each surveillance technology used by the NYPD. Instead, the Department buried new surveillance technology under a single IUP that obfuscates what has been acquired and how it has been used. Furthermore, NYPD’s practices do not allow for the POST Act’s public notification process, which should enable 45 days for the public to submit comments on the NYPD’s draft IUPs before finalization and deployment of new surveillance technology.

New Yorkers deserve more accountability as the Department continues to acquire and deploy surveillance technology in our communities. Intro 1207 tackles the way the Department has been drafting IUPs by clarifying that the NYPD is required to publish an IUP for each surveillance technology it uses, that the IUP identifies each external entity that receives data from said technology, that they report on safeguards to prevent dissemination of surveillance data, and that such IUPs adequately disclose assessment of potential disparate impacts on protected groups arising from the NYPD’s use such technologies.

Together with Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, I sponsored the legislation that created the NYPD Inspector General’s office in 2013 with the goal of empowering an independent oversight office to scrutinize NYPD policies and procedures, especially where civil rights and liberties are concerned. Intro 1193 by Council Member Farias and Intro 1207 by Council Member Won would enable the Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD (OIG-NYPD) to do that job by requiring the NYPD to provide the Department of Investigation (DOI) an itemized list of all surveillance technologies used by the Department, along with information on data access and retention policies for data collected by such technologies. Intro 1193 also requires the NYPD to provide DOI with quarterly updates on any newly acquired or discontinued technologies and updates to data access and retention policies.

These bills are vital to ensuring that the NYPD is implementing the POST Act as intended, bringing transparency to New Yorkers, and enabling oversight of surveillance technologies that carry with them risks to civil rights and liberties. With the rise of facial recognition technology in particular, which has repeatedly been shown to make disproportionate errors in identifying people of color, Intro 1193, sponsored by Council Member Hudson, would require the Department to publish a written policy establishing the procedures and regulations for the use of facial recognition technologies on its website and a biannual audit by the Department and a mandate to share its findings with DOI.

New Yorkers deserve to live in a safe and just city, and new technology of course has an important role to play in that work; however, law enforcement’s increased use of surveillance technology tools without sufficient transparency and guardrails runs the risk of exacerbating inequity, violating privacy, and eroding the public’s trust. We urge the Council to pass these bills to strengthen the POST Act and increase police accountability in New York City.

Thank you again for the opportunity to submit this testimony.

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