From the Morning Memo:
State lawmakers in the Senate and Assembly this week introduced a bill that would ban the use of facial recognition technology by landlords in residential buildings.
The legislation is being proposed after San Francisco approved a similar ban on facial recognition technology usage earlier this week.
Lawmakers introduced the bill after the technology was introduced in residential buildings as an alternative to traditional key or pass code systems. Residents in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn filed a complaint with the New York State Homes and Community Renewal over plans to install a facial recognition system.
The concern lawmakers have raised is the use of technology to track residents, tenants and guests coming into the building. At the same time, some opponents have raised concerns that the technology fails to analyze the faces of people of color properly.
“The use of facial recognition technology by landlords represents a new and dangerous breach of tenant privacy—one that lawmakers must move quickly to ban,” said Sen. Brad Hoylman, a Democrat from Manhattan.
The bill is backed by Assemblywoman Latrice Walker as well as Sen. Velmanette Montgomery.
“Facial recognition in residential properties opens a gateway for unlawful surveillance and/or exercise of powers that private landlords do not and should not have,” Walker said.
“It creates situations of profiling and discrimination of residents, their families, and their guests. Facial recognition technology is intrusive, and would lead to abusive practices, and would be another way to criminalize tenants. We have seen countless incidents where tenants are being accused of not residing in their home and being criminalized in their own buildings. This should be a wakeup call for New Yorkers on how dangerous facial recognition technology could truly be.”