Surveillance and Civil Rights

Today, all New Yorkers are subject to a vast and sophisticated surveillance network run by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and other local agencies. Although the City’s surveillance network largely operates in the shadows, our work, community activism, investigative journalism, and public interest litigation have brought pieces of it into public view. These insights have revealed that the City is collecting huge amounts of personal information about all New Yorkers, including detailed records of where they’ve been, what they’ve shared on social media, and more. The City is then using that information to surveil, arrest, and prosecute predominately Black and Latine/x/a/o/Hispanic people.

BDS strongly believes that the City's invasive and growing surveillance program poses a dangerous threat to our communities’ constitutional and civil rights. Therefore, we are challenging illegal surveillance practices in court, working to bring community attention to the City’s invasive surveillance practices, and pushing for increased democratic oversight of the NYPD and all City agencies that are collecting and storing our personal information.