Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, Inc.

-against-

Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York City Transit

Status: Filed

Key issues: Police Practices, Open Records, Facial Recognition, Transit, Privacy.

Court: Supreme Court of the State of New York, New York County

Docket: 150127/2020.

Counsel: S.T.O.P. / Weil, Gotshal & Manges, LLP

S.T.O.P. and our co-counsel are pursuing litigation under New York’s Freedom of Information Law (“FOIL") to compel MTA, New York City Transit (“MTA, NYCT”) to produce documents requested about the apparent installation of facial recognition surveillance in the Times Square / Port Authority Subway Station.

S.T.O.P. originally requested the documents on April 19th, 2019, following a tweet from New York Times Employee Alice Fung, revealing a Wisenet brand display, with yellow squares drawn over the faces of transit riders as they entered the station. The MTA publicly denied that the Wisenet brand monitors had facial recognition capability, but they then refuse to provide any of the documents that would confirm their claims.

MTA Headquarters denied S.T.O.P.’s FOIL request, stating that MTA, NYCT would have responsive records. Unfortunately MTA, NYCT failed to produce any documents or even respond to S.T.O.P.’s administrative appeal. S.T.O.P. and our co-counsel filed our petition in New York State Supreme Court on January 6th, 2020. Litigation is ongoing