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Tenants Outraged Over New York Landlord's Plan To Install Facial Recognition Technology (gothamist.com) 281

A Brooklyn landlord plans to install facial recognition technology at the entrance of a 700-unit building, according to Gothamist, "raising alarm among tenants and housing rights attorneys about what they say is a far-reaching and egregious form of digital surveillance." [Last] Sunday, several tenants told Gothamist that, unbeknownst to them, their landlord, Nelson Management, had sought state approval in July 2018 to install a facial recognition system known as StoneLock. Under state rules, landlords of rent-regulated apartments built before 1974 must seek permission from the state's Homes and Community Renewal (HCR) for any "modification in service." Tenants at the two buildings, located at 249 Thomas S. Boyland Street and 216 Rockaway Avenue, said they began receiving notices about the system in the fall. According to its website, Kansas-based company StoneLock offers a "frictionless" entry system that collects biometric data based on facial features. "We don't want to be tracked," said Icemae Downes, a longtime tenant. "We are not animals. This is like tagging us through our faces because they can't implant us with a chip."

It is not clear how many New York City apartments are using facial scanning software or how such technology is being regulated. But in a sign of the times, the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development last June began marketing 107 affordable units at a new apartment complex in the South Bronx. Among the amenities listed was "State of the Art Facial Recognition Building Access...." Across the real estate industry, New York City landlords have increasingly been moving to keyless entry systems, citing convenience as well as a desire to offer enhanced security. Over the years, in response to appeals filed by tenants, HCR has ruled in favor of key fob and card entry systems, saying that such substitutions did not violate rent-stabilization and rent-control laws. But the latest technology has triggered even more concerns about the ethics of data collection....

Last month, the management company reached out to a group of tenants to assuage their concerns about StoneLock. But tenants said the presentation, if anything, only deepened their fears that they were being asked to submit to a technology that had very little research behind it.

"This was not something we asked for at any given time," one tenant complaint, while one of the attorneys representing the tenants said that, among other things, their landlord had "made no assurances to protect the data from being accessed by NYPD, ICE, or any other city, state, or federal agency."

"Citing concerns over the potential for privacy and civil liberties violations, tenants at Brownsville's Atlantic Plaza Towers filed an objection to the plan in January..."
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Tenants Outraged Over New York Landlord's Plan To Install Facial Recognition Technology

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  • Now, I realize even humans are not 100% perfect at recognizing faces, but is facial recognition really good enough for this kind of application? You know it will get it wrong at least some of the time.

  • Seems like an extreme way to crack down on unauthorized subletting and rent-control fraud.

    Tenants of rent stabilized apartments are allowed to sublet their apartment [nyc.gov], but this incurs a 10% surchage, so there's an incentive to sublet without notification.

  • How is such technology different — in principle — from doormen? They too would look at everyone and remember — to the best of their ability — who walked in and out, and when?

    • I worked at the front desk of a Manhattan residential building, it was fully expected of me, but not doormen, to know every resident of the over 500 units, and stop anyone that didn't live there to check if they were on the entry list or call up and ask if the resident wanted them let in. It was serious too, new employees couldn't be alone at the desk until they could do this without accidentally stopping someone who lived there. Now of course we didn't log residents coming in and out, but between us and co
    • You know who the doormen is, and have an opportunity to explain strange circumstances to them, and can actually provide assistance in case of difficulty. An anonymous tracking report, scannable by unknown people with no verification to the residents is a different. And it provides none of the help that a human doorman provides.

      • by kenh ( 9056 )

        So it's wrong because it's not a doorman? Door men can be bribed, convinced to lie, etc. Is that really a better system than a single facial recognition system in the lobby?

        • I'm afraid your question was "how such technology different". I provided a few distinctions. I also meant to say that the _doorman_ can actually provide assistance. They are, in fact, expected to provide assistance, to accept packages and to screen visitors in a way that a mere visual recording cannot. A doorman is a more transparent resource, accessible to the residents who might reasonably ask "did my kids get home?". They might also be notified that "I'm divorced, and my husband is not welcome." or actua

  • by ebonum ( 830686 ) on Sunday March 31, 2019 @06:15PM (#58363242)

    When I lived in NYC, I knew lots of people renting "rent-regulated apartments". One worked at Goldman for 200K+ a year. It was a good deal. The person with the apartment pocked the rent spread each month. The Goldman guy paid about 75% or 80% of full market value and was able to save each month to buy an apartment.

    If you have a NYC rent stabilized apartment, market forces push you very hard to live outside the city and sublet. I'm going to guess the people who were subletting, the leasors, were not paying taxes. They were well motivated to not get caught.

    If the goal is to give poor people something for free, letting them sublet accomplishes that goal. Doubly so if they skip taxes.

  • The police can request any camera information and warrant for that data to be supplied under the Homeland security act (IIRC).

    • by kenh ( 9056 )

      The police can request any camera information and warrant for that data to be supplied under the Homeland security act (IIRC).

      The police can interrogate the doorman.
      The police can review security camera footage.
      The police can feed the CCTV footage into their own facial recognition software, if interested to.
      The police can stakeout the lobby.

      What does the on-site facial recognition system add to the already existing way the police can monitor anyone's comings and goings from any apartment building?

  • by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ) on Sunday March 31, 2019 @07:53PM (#58363598) Journal

    Thank goodness the police or government would never misuse such a wonderful surveillance tool.

  • by darkmeridian ( 119044 ) <william.chuangNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday March 31, 2019 @09:06PM (#58363792) Homepage

    The tenants are living in rent-stabilized or rent-controlled buildings, which offer highly discounted rents. However, the tenants are required to use the discounted apartments as their primary residences. The city does not want tenants to turn around and sublet their apartments at market rates, and pocket the difference. So landlords have been installing cameras to see who is living in the apartments. The facial recognition system is another step in that direction.

    • by kenh ( 9056 )

      A tenant can sublet their apartment, with the landlord's permission, and for a 10% fee. The tenant can not establish primary residence elsewhere - if they do, and the landlord can prove it, the lease can be broken.

      https://www1.nyc.gov/site/rent... [nyc.gov]

  • But I don't see a single thing wrong with this... people who don't like it can move to another building.

    The landlord would, however, be voiding any leases currently in place since these facilities would not be in the lease's terms, and people should be free to find another place without violating any lease.

    • by Swave An deBwoner ( 907414 ) on Sunday March 31, 2019 @11:12PM (#58364180)

      The landlord in general would be happy as a pig in mud to void the leases of rent-regulated tenants. The whole point of this exercise is to obtain evidence that the tenant isn't coming and going frequently enough to prove that it's his/her "primary residence" so that the landlord can evict them.

      It's not for security. It's not to make it easier for the tenants to enter without carrying a key. It's to claw back the few remaining affordable apartments.

      • by Altus ( 1034 )

        If they are being illegally sublet then they are not "affordable." They are being sub-letted out at a profit, illegally, by the people who's rent is being controlled by the government.

        If the people who were the original tenants under rent control still live in the apartment then the rent control is valid and they are allowed to stay at the low rent as the law intended.

        • I didn't mention subletting. The rent-stabilization rule in NY is not that "the people who were the original tenants under rent control still live in the apartment" as you state but rather that the original tenant(s) must be physically in that apartment for (1 + 365/2) days per year, every year. So it's a bit like being under house arrest except without having committed any crime beforehand.

      • by Targon ( 17348 )

        The real reason is so those who are NOT on the lease are not the ones living there. So, no problem if you don't show up often or anything like that, but if people not on the lease keep going in without the owner, doesn't that imply that there is a violation of the lease, because people not on the lease are living there?

        I agree that for the most part, it DOES make it easier for those who should be there(on the lease), and not as easy for those scamming the system.

        • I didn't say anything about people not on the lease, however NYS law is that at least one person who is not on the lease may reside with the leaseholder (the "roommate law").

          But as I replied to Altus, it is definitely false that there is "no problem if you don't show up often or anything like that". The NYS rent stabilization law requires that you show up often - specifically at least (1 + 365/2) days per year. Landlords love to claim that the tenant is there less frequently as a means to evict them.

    • by Altus ( 1034 )

      Its unlikely that this violates any leases. The lease does, generally, promise that public areas are not monitored and it would depend on your local laws if they even need to tell you that the public areas are monitored. Its possible that anything might be put in a lease but it is not something that is a part of a standard lease and you should not have any expectation of privacy outside of your unit because as soon as you leave your unit you are in a public and shared space.

  • Mount that expensive and unpopular tech where all of these low income people can see it. Let me know how that works out for you.

  • Why is a face-recognizing person a good thing and a face-recognizing camera a bad thing? It can't be that the police can check it's records, a doorman will tell them just the same.
    • because boogeyman
    • "It can't be that the police can check it's records, a doorman will tell them just the same."

      Doormen don't usually work 24/7 and timestamp every entry to the second. Also, they generally don't remember who came/went perfectly for years after an event.

      Just like its ok for police to see you walking around public, but most people wouldn't like them recording every movement for posterity.

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