This technology wasn't built to protect you.
Facial recognition and biometric surveillance sound futuristic. In practice, they're poorly regulated, wrong more often for Black, Asian, and immigrant New Yorkers, and already being used to bar attorneys from arenas, track shoppers, and screen tenants. Here's the full case for banning it.
First, The Basics
Two technologies, one problem.
These terms get used interchangeably, but they describe slightly different things, and both are part of what we're trying to ban.
Facial Recognition
Software that scans a camera image of your face, converts it into a mathematical map, and compares it against a database of other faces to find a match, used by police, landlords, and retailers to identify people without their knowledge or consent.
Biometric Surveillance
The broader practice of tracking people using unique physical traits (face, gait, voice, fingerprints) often continuously and at a distance, without the person ever being asked to opt in.
The Case Against It
Four reasons this technology fails the people it claims to protect.
Mass Surveillance, Minimal Oversight
The NYPD ran facial recognition searches more than 22,000 times between 2016 and 2019 alone, largely without public disclosure, warrants, or independent oversight of how matches were used or how often they were wrong.
Built-In Bias
A landmark 2019 federal study (NIST) found that many commercial facial recognition algorithms misidentified Black and Asian faces at 10 to 100 times the rate of white faces. That bias doesn't stay theoretical: it shows up as wrongful arrests, disproportionately affecting BIPOC, Muslim, immigrant, and LGBTQ+ New Yorkers.
Corporate Gatekeeping
Madison Square Garden Entertainment has used facial recognition to identify and bar attorneys from entering its venues simply because they work for firms involved in litigation against the company. Retailers like Wegmans and Rite Aid have scanned shoppers' faces without consent, and landlords are rolling out facial recognition entry systems in residential buildings.
Zero Meaningful Consent
Most New Yorkers scanned by these systems never agreed to it and have no practical way to opt out, whether they're walking into their own apartment building, attending a protest, or just shopping for groceries. That has a chilling effect on speech, assembly, and immigrant communities in particular.
Research & Studies
The evidence behind the campaign.
Independent research documenting how facial recognition performs, who it fails, and how it's already being used across New York.
Scan City: A Decade of NYPD Facial Recognition Abuse, documenting a decade of the department's use of the technology.
USA: Facial Recognition Technology Reinforcing Racist Stop-and-Frisk Policing in New York
A Forensic Without the Science: Face Recognition in U.S. Criminal Investigations, from the Center on Privacy and Technology.
Garbage In, Garbage Out: Face Recognition on Flawed Data, also from the Center on Privacy and Technology.
Face Recognition Vendor Test, the federal government's own accuracy testing of commercial facial recognition systems.
Why We Absolutely Must Ban Private Use Of Facial Recognition
Real Stories
This isn't hypothetical. It's already happened here.
These are among the publicly documented cases of Americans wrongfully arrested because of a facial recognition misidentification, exactly the harm these bills are designed to prevent.
Robert Williams
The New York Times · June 2020
The first publicly known case of a wrongful arrest based on a facial recognition misidentification. Williams was arrested in front of his family and held for 30 hours after an algorithm falsely matched him to surveillance footage from a store robbery.
Wrongfully Accused by an Algorithm →Nijeer Parks
The New York Times · December 2020
Parks spent ten days in jail and paid thousands of dollars to defend himself against a crime he didn't commit, after a facial recognition match wrongly identified him as a shoplifting suspect.
Another Arrest, and Jail Time, Due to a Bad Facial Recognition Match →Porcha Woodruff
The New York Times · August 2023
Eight months pregnant, Woodruff was arrested in front of her children at her home after a facial recognition system falsely matched her to a carjacking and robbery suspect.
Eight Months Pregnant and Arrested After False Facial Recognition Match →Faulty Facial Recognition Led to His Arrest, Now He's Suing. VICE
“Thousands of Dollars for Something I Didn't Do.” The New York Times, Gizmodo, AP News
How the N.Y.P.D.'s Facial Recognition Tool Landed the Wrong Man in Jail. The New York Times, ABC News
Wrongly arrested by Detroit police based on facial recognition. FOX 2 Detroit
Arrested by AI: Police Ignore Standards After Facial Recognition Matches. The Washington Post
It's Already Working
Four places have already banned it. New York should be next.
These bans haven't stopped public safety work. They've just stopped the unaccountable use of biased, invasive technology.
Banned city government use of facial recognition, including by police, in 2020.
Read More →The first major U.S. city to ban police and city agency use of facial recognition, in 2019.
Read More →Banned both government and private-sector use of facial recognition in public accommodations in 2020.
Read More →Banned city government and police use of facial recognition technology in 2021.
Read More →Now You Know Why
Here's what we're doing about it.
We're pushing bans at both the state and city level. See the bills, read the details, and sign the petition for your campaign.
Take Action
Your legislators need to hear from you.
Sign the petition, contact your representatives, and stay in the loop as these bills move through the City Council and State Legislature.