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Policy change allows NYC to fund pilot programs with little oversight, per lawsuit
By
Ben Feuerherd
Published Apr 6, 2025
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Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images
By
Ben Feuerherd
Published Apr 6, 2025
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New York City has expanded a policy that critics say allows officials to enter into expensive contracts with little oversight, according to city officials and a recent lawsuit challenging the practice.
The policy allows the city to hire vendors to run short-term, real-world tests to see whether new products and technology are effective, according to the comptroller’s office. It’s recently been expanded by a city board, allowing the so-called “demonstration projects” to be extended for up to three years.
Now, a privacy advocacy group has sued the city, saying the expansion “benefits vendors more than it protects New Yorkers. ” In the lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court in January, the Surveillance Resistance Lab seeks to void the rule change. The group claims taxpayer-funded demonstration projects lack oversight and competition. They also say the projects may help untested vendors get a foothold and could allow New Yorkers’ data to be used as a “sandbox” for untested technology.
If the lawsuit is successful, it will help safeguard public funds and New Yorkers’ privacy, said Cynthia Conti-Cook, the director of research at the Surveillance Resistance Lab.
“What concerns me about pilot projects is that it gives tech corporations in particular an opportunity to access city infrastructure and city data with less of a vetting process,” Conti-Cook said.
The pilot programs are awarded through a noncompetitive bid process, which faces less oversight than other contracts, according to the comptroller’s office. Under the new rules, private companies will be able to identify problems facing the city and pitch solutions, rather than waiting for the city to solicit specific bids.
A spokesperson for the city said the rule changes will help spur innovation.
“Demonstration projects, and challenge-based procurements allow the City to explore creative solutions to complex problems,” Yexenia Markland, of the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services, said in a statement.
Though the lawsuit challenges the merits of the projects, its legal claim is based on a technicality: It says the city’s Procurement Policy Board violated New York’s Open Meetings Law because it did not publicly post a notice of the Sept. 19 board meeting where the policy was changed 72 hours prior, as required.
The city says it posted proper notice.
But the rule changes have critics beyond the Surveillance Resistance Lab.
Rachel Fauss, a senior policy adviser for the accountability nonprofit Reinvent Albany, said the new rules lessen competition and transparency.
“It seems like the most recent procurement changes take away some safeguards,” Fauss told Gothamist.
An urban policy researcher at the Manhattan Institute backed expanding pilot programs in the city.
“Anything that is expanding demonstration projects, that is allowing more flexibility to officers making procurement is probably a move in the right direction,” said Judge Glock, the director of research at the institute.
“If there are particular corruption concerns that arise after the fact, those can certainly be dealt with. But it seems like that would be better dealt with on the back end rather than hamstringing the people doing the procurement at the beginning,” he said.
The suit highlights ShotSpotter, a controversial city gunshot detection technology, as one example of how a pilot project can go astray.
ShotSpotter uses sensors to detect when a gun is fired nearby and alert police.
The city first signed a contract with ShotSpotter through a demonstration project in 2014 during then-Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration. The two-year, $1.5 million trial began with the installation of sensors in some areas of Brooklyn and the Bronx.
The city ultimately entered into a number of contracts with ShotSpotter, placing sensors across all five boroughs. Between 2014 and 2023, the NYPD spent $45.4 million on the technology, according to the comptroller.
In 2024, the comptroller’s office audited the technology and found that 87% of the time, ShotSpotter sent officers to loud noises that turned out not to be confirmed gunfire. NYPD officers spent thousands of hours responding to ShotSpotter alerts that were not confirmed shootings, according to the audit.
Fauss said once a vendor like ShotSpotter gets approved for a pilot project, obtaining renewals is easier.
“When there's a noncompetitive process for a vendor to start work with the city, it's easier for contracts to get extended. It's easier for future proposals to be made with that vendor in mind when there's nobody else to do that work,” Fauss said.
ShotSpotter declined to comment.
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new york city
public safety
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Ben Feuerherd
Ben Feuerherd covers public safety and policing for WNYC and Gothamist. He previously covered federal courts for The New York Post and The Messenger. His work has also appeared in POLITICO, the Daily Beast and NBC New York. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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