[Policy] City-level solutions to counter the proliferation and abuses of landlord surveillance

This policy & content development started in April 2025 and is ongoing, in collaboration with [&Roses](https://www.androses.co/work) and the [Anti-Eviction Lab](https://www.antievictionlab.org/ny-report). The policy recommendation was presented to various progressive candidates, including Zohran Mamdani and Chi Osse.

This memo recommends strengthening the campaign’s tenant protection agenda, by taking on the creeping, largely unregulated rise of landlord-serving technology in residences across the city. Along with strategic neglect and harassment, in-building surveillance is an instrument for accelerating displacement and automated gentrification. A small extension to an existing platform policy (Protecting New York's Tenants) – centered around transparency, granular consent obligations, and practicable power to opt-out – would equip New Yorkers with a comprehensive defense against the corporate landlord playbook.
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### Context

Residents all over NYC are being surveilled in their own homes via ‘Landlord Technology’; including but not limited to CCTV, facial/voice recognition, biometric authentication, and smart access systems. Tenants hold no practical or legal power to opt-out, nor prevent footage and sensitive data being used against their interests. Despite the absence of official datasets to quantify the full extent of tech-enabled abuse, there is evidence of live feeds being shared with the NYPD, minor lease violations caught on camera strategically leveraged to fast-track evictions, and a trend towards full-scale monitoring and regulation of tenant life. Moreover, the advent of mass deportations raises the prospect of in-building surveillance being leveraged to augment ICE’s radar.

### Testimony

We recently collected testimony from residents of Taino Towers in East Harlem – one of the first affordable housing blocks to have facial recognition installed – some of their views feature in the draft video primer.

They were aware these 'security' installations are for the landlord's benefit, not theirs. They reflected on how landlord tech contributes to the affordability/housing crisis by weakening their negotiating position and accelerating the replacement of lower-income residents with higher-income residents. And they, like the many others who've had surveillance systems non-consensually imposed on them, seek protections and rights from the city and state.

Policy memo for NYC mayoral administration summary

## Agenda Extension: Cracking down on rights-violating landlords

As part of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants overhaul, we recommend extensions to the administration’s agenda; to grapple with the creeping proliferation of landlord technologies, reel in the extra power conferred to corporate landlords via the unfettered harvesting of sensitive data, and establish tenants’ rights to opt-out from non-consensual installation of surveilling technologies in their most private of spaces. We propose two  approaches; (1) extending the MOPT mandate & (2) proposing & sponsoring legislation.

→ Example language for approach (1): The Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants will conduct a citywide study into the abuses of unregulated surveillance & biometric systems, uncovering, collating and tracking its use in eviction proceedings, housing discrimination, police raids, and deportation orders.

→ Example title pledges and language for approach (2): 
‍Stop Spying on NYC’s Residents in their Homes
Prevent In-Building Surveillance Being Used Against Tenants
Support Tenants Against In-Building CCTV Being Shared with the NYPD, Eviction Court & ICE

In concert with the DOB & HPD, the MOPT will design and sponsor the creation of a mandatory registry for all existing and new installations of CCTV, biometric and smart key systems in residential buildings, forcing building managers to disclose the extent, use and destinations of footage/data.

The administration would propose and sponsor legislation to i. establish tenant rights to opt-out of surveillance apparatuses being installed in their buildings, ii. require explicit case-by-case consent for any and all third-party access, including NYC Housing Court, the NYPD and/or ICE, and iii. establish a right of action for violations of i. & ii., or if tenants are harassed, blackmailed, threatened, evicted, or forced in any way to acquiesce.

(a) would be modelled upon the design and legislative passage of the Short-Term Rental Registration law.
(b) would build upon the TDPL’s provisions to apply beyond the narrow case of keyless access systems.

Pledges (a) & (b) could be supplemented by the establishment of a specialized legal support network for affected tenants, bringing together housing attorneys and civil rights experts. Additionally, in the context of NYCHA and city-owned/leased properties, the administration could institute a moratorium on surveillance system installations and a total ban on the procurement of facial recognition and biometric technology. 

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