Electronic surveillance

Anti-Surveillance Advocates Sue MTA Over Alleged Use Of Facial Recognition Technology

A nonprofit watchdog group is suing the MTA to get information about a video monitor installed in Times Square to deter fare evasion, which drew suspicions that the agency is deploying facial recognition technology.

In a lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court on Monday, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), an advocacy group which fights against local and state-level surveillance, charged the MTA with stonewalling its efforts to verify the agency's contention that the cameras had no facial recognition component.

"I want to finally get to the bottom of this," Albert Fox, STOP's founder and executive director told Gothamist in a phone interview on Wednesday.

Concerns over the MTA's surveillance strategies surfaced last April when Alice Fung, a New York Times employee, tweeted a photo of a large monitor above a subway turnstile in Times Square that had the phrases, "Recording in progress" and "Pay your fare."