A pair of New York City Council members have proposed a law that would require the NYPD to disclose and evaluate the impact of the surveillance technologies it uses.
Submitted for consideration by Daniel Garodnick and Vanessa Gibson, the legislation would require the city's police department to issue an “impact and use policy” for any new and preexisting surveillance equipment. Such a policy would almost certainly require the NYPD to provide details about the use of controversial stingray devices to track suspects on their phones by mimicking wireless carrier cell towers.
The impact and use policies would include a description of the technology and its capabilities, guidelines and restrictions on its usage, safeguards to protect data collected by the equipment, data retention and access policies, and more.
The public would then be given time to review each policy and provide feedback, before a final report is submitted to the mayor and NYC Council, as well as published on the NYPD's website. Additionally, the inspector general for the NYPD would conduct annual audits to determine if the NYPD is complying with its surveillance policies and report any violations.
