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Anti-Surveillance Advocates Sue MTA Over Alleged Use Of Facial Recognition Technology
By
Elizabeth Kim
Published Jan 8, 2020
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By
Elizabeth Kim
Published Jan 8, 2020
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A nonprofit watchdog group is suing the MTA to get information about a video monitor installed in Times Square to deter fare evasion, which drew suspicions that the agency is deploying facial recognition technology.
In a lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court on Monday, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), an advocacy group which fights against local and state-level surveillance, charged the MTA with stonewalling its efforts to verify the agency's contention that the cameras had no facial recognition component.
"I want to finally get to the bottom of this," Albert Fox Cahn, STOP's founder and executive director told Gothamist in a phone interview on Wednesday.
Concerns over the MTA's surveillance strategies surfaced last April when Alice Fung, a New York Times employee, tweeted a photo of a large monitor above a subway turnstile in Times Square that had the phrases, "Recording in progress" and "Pay your fare."
“Hey @MTA, who are you sharing the recordings with?” Fung asked.
In a story published by The Verge, an MTA spokesperson said that that facial recognition was not being used in the cameras and that the agency had no plans to add facial recognition software to them. He added, “These cameras are purely for the purpose of deterring fare evasion — if you see yourself on a monitor, you’re less likely to evade the fare.”
The screen at Times Square showed the name WISENET, a camera that is manufactured by Hanwha Techwin, a South Korean company that provides security cameras and surveillance solutions, including facial recognition.
STOP submitted a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request seeking all communication and other documents related to the camera between January 2014 and April 2019.
According to the complaint, the MTA said it had no documents related to the request and directed STOP to New York City Transit, which is charged with managing the subway and bus systems. The latter told STOP that it needed four months to respond to the FOIL request.
Cahn accused the agency of resorting to stalling tactics.
In response to the lawsuit, MTA spokesperson Shams Tarek reiterated the agency's comments last year about the Times Square cameras.
“There is absolutely no facial recognition component to these cameras, no facial recognition software, or anything else that could be used to automatically identify people in any way, and we have no plans to add facial recognition software to these cameras in the future," he said, in a statement. "Beyond that, it’s our policy not to comment on pending litigation.”
Privacy advocates have reason to be suspicious about the MTA deploying facial recognition. Last year, the Wall Street Journal revealed that the MTA had been testing facial recognition at the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. Even though early tests had failed, showing a zero percent facial detection rate, a spokesman for the MTA told the WSJ that the pilot program was continuing at the bridge. The story also reported a November 29th, 2018 email in which an MTA official said that additional cameras were being acquired for expansion of the program to other facilities.
Cahn argued that if it were true that the MTA had installed facial recognition in the subway, it would be an even graver offense that its use on drivers. "We have had a growing system of tracking for vehicles," he said. "But simply walking the streets of New York or getting on the subway has been something where we haven’t had to second guess who is monitoring our trips."
In June, Cahn and others pointed out that the MTA's new tap-to-pay system known as OMNY contains small cameras, although the MTA has said they are disabled and do not have facial recognition capabilities.
More recently, Governor Andrew Cuomo's plan to ban repeat and high-risk sex offenders from using the MTA's transit systems has also raised privacy questions. Cuomo has not said how such a ban would be enforced but privacy advocates are concerned about surveillance technology.
Even if the MTA is not using facial recognition as it maintains, Cahn said, "The idea that you would be investing in technology to terrify New Yorkers into thinking they are under surveillance is almost as bad as the surveillance itself."
UPDATE: A prior version of this story misstated the last name for Albert Fox Cahn. His middle name is Fox.
Tagged
MTA
facial recognition
surveillance cameras
Times Square
subway
lawsuit
Elizabeth Kim
Elizabeth Kim is a reporter on the People and Power desk who covers mayoral power. She previously covered the pandemic, housing, redevelopment and public spaces. A native of Queens, she speaks fluent Mandarin. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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