TESTIMONY
Albert Fox Cahn, Executive Director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, on Protecting New Yorkers from Commercial Exploitation of Location Data
2:15:40
·
3 min
Albert Fox Cahn testifies in support of legislation to prohibit the commercialization of New Yorkers' location data by apps and technology companies.
- He represents the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project advocating for this regulation to fill the gap left by state and federal authorities
- Cahn suggests adding an exception allowing criminal defense attorneys to access location data for legal cases
- He criticizes the city's claims of protecting privacy, highlighting inaction on biometric surveillance
- Cahn argues the technology poses privacy threats without benefiting security, enabling corporate exploitation of New Yorkers
Albert Fox Cahn
2:15:40
Good afternoon, Jared Gutierrez.
2:15:42
Members of the committee.
2:15:44
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
2:15:45
My name's Albert Foxconn, and I'm the executive director of the surveillance technology oversight project, and I am offering written testimony and support of intro 539 today which would prohibit the commercialization of our location data, which is a routine part of how New Yorkers are being tracked every single day, having our devices turned against us as a way to market to us, to sell products to us to sometimes even police us to we see this data being used by law enforcement.
2:16:19
We see this data being used by even government agencies like the IRS.
2:16:24
And, you know, in our testimony, we spell out why it is so important that New York city filled, the regulatory gap that has been left by Albany, that has been left by Washington, that has left New Yorkers exposed to having their most intimate moments collected by a unregulated wild west of apps that are constantly churning out new and horrifying ways to turn our every single moment, our the record of how we live our lives.
2:16:53
Into a product for the highest bidder.
2:16:55
This is something that New York can take a leading stance on where we can be on the cutting edge.
2:17:01
And as we point out in our written testimony, there is one change that would be helpful.
2:17:09
Adding a clear carve out for defense attorneys in criminal investigations to make clear that criminal defense attorneys like police officers offering being with a warrant have the ability to obtain this information from these companies because no one should be denied a defense in court because of this privacy protection.
2:17:31
This should be a way to protect us from this sort of DragonNet surveillance.
2:17:35
But I think I I wanna go back to the city's kinda shocking testimony more broadly because we heard from agencies that this city is on the cutting edge of protecting New Yorkers and that they are absent.
2:17:47
They are completely absent from the issues that brought us here today.
2:17:52
They're absent from talking about biometric technology, and they put forward a false question.
2:17:58
This false debate about privacy versus security because what I'm here to tell you today is that this technology poses a threat to the public and versus nothing in return.
2:18:08
This technology is ripe for abuse and exploitation, and this isn't protecting us from, you know, acts of terrorism at mass in Square Garden.
2:18:17
It's prevent it's protecting Dolan from critics.
2:18:21
And litigants at Madison Square Garden.
2:18:24
It's protecting his ability to control a public space as a private victim, and that's the sort of abuse we see with these sorts of technologies, the largest companies abusing it every day to target New Yorkers.
2:18:37
And that's the sort of power imbalance.
2:18:39
We shouldn't allow to continue for one day longer.
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Nina Loshkajian, Staff Attorney at Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, on urging the NYC Council to ban biometric surveillance in public accommodations and by landlords
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Shane Farrell, Staff Attorney at the Legal Aid Society's Digital Forensics Unit, on Opposing the Use of Biometric Surveillance and Facial Recognition Technology
