S.T.O.P., Restore the Fourth Argue NYC’s Mass Tracking of Taxi and Rideshare Riders Is Unconstitutional
(New York, NY, 7/9/26) - Today, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), a privacy and civil rights group, and Restore the Fourth, Inc. jointly filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Wheely USA, Inc. v. City of New York. The case challenges New York City’s Location Reporting Rules, which force taxi and for-hire vehicle companies to hand over the precise pickup and drop-off location of every trip with their drivers and passengers. This data can reveal where people seek medical care, attend religious services, gather to organize, and return home at night. This warrantless data collection cannot be excused simply because names are stripped from the data and the government claims it can use them to enforce driver fatigue objectives.The result of the city’s rule is a comprehensive database of New Yorkers’ movements: continuous surveillance that violates the Fourth Amendment, which requires government searches to be justified and tailored to specific persons and circumstances, not conducted en masse. The brief supports the plaintiffs and urges the court to reverse the district court’s dismissal.
SEE: S.T.O.P. & Restore the Fourth — Wheely v. City of New York Amicus Brief
https://www.stopspying.org/wheely-v-nyc-amicus-brief
“Stripping names off this data doesn’t make it anonymous” said Surveillance Technology Oversight Legal Director Darío Maestro. “Researchers have shown that a handful of trips is enough to identify one person out of millions. Under the Fourth Amendment, the government cannot build a map of millions of New Yorkers’ daily movements without any suspicion of wrongdoing. We shouldn’t have to choose between getting across town and handing the government a diary of our lives.”
SEE: Business Insider - NCLA Tells Second Circuit: Stop New York City’s Unconstitutional Rideshare Tracking Regime
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/ncla-tells-second-circuit-stop-new-york-city-s-unconstitutional-rideshare-tracking-regime-1036297282
Cato Institute - Wheely v. NYC Brief: Rideshare Companies Shouldn’t Have to Give the Government All Passenger and Trip Data
https://www.cato.org/blog/wheely-v-nyc-brief-rideshare-companies-shouldnt-have-give-government-all-passenger-trip-data-0
A federal district court in Manhattan previously dismissed Wheely’s lawsuit, invoking the “closely regulated industry” doctrine to excuse the City from the warrant requirement. That doctrine has never authorized mass surveillance of the public—it permits administrative inspections of businesses, not the wholesale collection of passenger location data. S.T.O.P. and Restore the Fourth urge the Second Circuit to correct the error and reverse.
In addition to Darío Maestro, S.T.O.P.’s legal fellows Alissa Johnson and Marwa Sayed, and legal intern Daniel Dunn, together with Mahesha Subbaraman of Subbaraman PLLC, authored the brief.
S.T.O.P. is a non-partisan, not-for-profit advocacy organization and legal services provider based in New York. Founded in 2019, S.T.O.P. litigates and advocates for privacy, fighting excessive local and state-level surveillance. Its work highlights the discriminatory impact of surveillance on Muslim Americans, immigrants, and communities of color.
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