AGENCY TESTIMONY
Summary of DOI's 2023 report on five new NYPD surveillance technologies
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ยท
3 min
Commissioner Strauber summarizes the 2023 POST Act report, which examined Impact and Use Policies (IUPs) for five new surveillance technologies introduced by NYPD in 2023. The report found that NYPD did not issue new IUPs for these technologies but addressed four of them in addenda to existing IUPs.
- Technologies reviewed: DigiDog, K5 autonomous security robot, StarChase GPS tracking, IDEMIA mobile biometric check, and an augmented reality smartphone application
- NYPD grouped distinct technologies within single IUPs, potentially shielding them from public scrutiny
- OIG NYPD argues that the POST Act requires separate IUPs for distinct technologies unless they are substantially similar
Jocelyn Strauber
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Since DOI last testified on this topic in December of twenty twenty three, we have issued two additional reports pursuant to the post act.
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The first of these reports focused on five technologies deployed by the NYPD in 2023, and the second report focused on NYPD's drone program.
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Today, will give you a summary of DOI's findings from these two reports and share our views of the three proposed bills under consideration today that relate to NYPD's use of surveillance technology.
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Starting with our 2023 post act report issued in the spring of twenty twenty four, that examined the IUPs applicable to five surveillance technologies that NYPD introduced in 2023.
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Digidog, a remotely operated robot.
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The second one was the Nightscape k five autonomous security robot known as k five.
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The third was StarChase GPS tracking technology known as StarChase, which allows officers to attach GPS trackers to moving vehicles.
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Number four was IDEMIA mobile biometric check application, referred to as IDEMIA, a smartphone application capable of collecting and comparing digital fingerprints.
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Fingerprints.
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And five, an augmented reality smartphone application which I'll refer to as the AR application built by NYPD's Information Technology Bureau capable of displaying data from NYPD databases concerning a specific location when a smartphone camera is pointed at that location.
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Our review found that NYPD did not issue new IUPs in connection with the deployment of these five surveillance technologies, but addressed four of them, k five, Starchase, IDEMIA, and the AR application in five different addenda to the existing IUPs.
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Those addenda were issued in April of twenty twenty three.
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According to NYPD, was addressed in an existing IUP issued in 2021 when an earlier version of DigiDog briefly was used by the department and therefore no addendum was required.
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OIGNYPD concluded that as of 2024, NYPD continued to group distinct surveillance technologies within a single IUP, a practice discussed in detail in our first annual post act report and in my testimony before these committees in December of twenty twenty three.
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We found that the grouping approach may shield individual technologies from public scrutiny and oversight.
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It is OIGNYPD's position that the post act requires an IUP for each distinct surveillance technology unless the technologies at issue are substantially similar in capability and manner of use.
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In that event, a single IUP may address more than one technology and should name each individual technology to which it applies.
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With respect to the five technologies reviewed in the 2023 report, OIGNYPD found that the IUPs did not include all of the information required by the postdoc.