Jacqueline Gosdigian, Supervising Policy Counsel testified before The New York City Council Committee on Technology regarding several pieces of proposed legislation intended to regulate the use of potentially invasive surveillance technologies by NYC agencies.

"Fundamentally, to build an AI system, a developer needs a large amount of data. Features of surveillance data—like the faces in surveillance footage—form datasets used by big tech. Those large datasets “teach” AI systems. Without those datasets, automated decision systems could not function. AI, then, brings with it a voracious appetite for data. It’s important to note here that many systems deployed by governments were initially built without surveillance or law enforcement in mind. This overaccumulation of data is concerning and potentially harmful to New Yorkers. The tools that our city government uses, rely on the accumulation of data to function, continuing to invade the lives and privacy of everyday city residents.

Thus, the conversation New York truly needs to have is not one centered around banning individual technologies but instead around defining our rights, both to our data and to question and contest the decisions made by AI systems. And particularly, grappling with the inequities of the data surveillance economy we are already constructing around ourselves."

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"These examples drive home two critical insights: (1) the “surveillance load” in our city is being disproportionately carried out in Black and brown neighborhoods and communities; and (2) despite the common belief that the courts provide oversight of government tactics, the collection, storage, and use of the vast majority of surveillance data–including biometric data–will never be reviewed by any court or anyone outside law enforcement."

Read the full testimony here.