New York Tenants Fight as Landlords Embrace Facial Recognition Cameras

Tenants in a New York City apartment complex are fighting their landlord's effort to install a facial recognition system to access parts of the buildings, calling it an affront to their privacy rights. From a report: The row, which the tenants believe could become an important test case, comes as concern about the spread of facial recognition systems has grown across the US and globally, with law enforcement agencies increasingly relying on the tool. San Francisco this month became the first US city to ban city police and government agencies from using it. Private firms are also increasingly keen on the technology. At Atlantic Plaza Towers in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, the landlord, Nelson Management Group, is moving to install a new system to control entry into the buildings. It would use facial recognition to open the front door for recognized tenants rather than traditional keys or electronic key fobs.

More than 130 tenants have, however, filed a formal complaint with the state seeking to block the application. 'We do not want to be tagged like animals,' said Icemae Downes, who has lived at Atlantic Plaza Towers since it opened 51 years ago. 'We are not animals. We should be able to freely come in and out of our development without you tracking every movement.' Some residents also fear the move reflects the spreading pressures of gentrification further into the east of Brooklyn, and a desire to attract white, higher-income residents in the buildings, whose tenants are mostly black. They say there is already a culture of surveillance and that if they are suspected of breaking one of the building's rules, they might find an image of themselves pushed under their doors.

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