Amnesty International and the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP) released on Thursday more than 2,700 New York Police Department (NYPD) documents obtained after a five-year lawsuit. The groups argue that the documents reveal extensive and discriminatory surveillance practices.
The records, ordered to be disclosed by a New York state court in 2022, show repeated uses of facial recognition technology (FRT) against individuals engaged in everyday activity as well as political expression. According to the organizations, the disclosures detail how the NYPD relied on FRT to identify people flagged by public reports that labeled them “suspicious” for speaking a foreign language or wearing culturally distinctive clothing. Advocates say these reports demonstrate that racial and cultural profiling frequently served as the basis for surveillance queries.
The records also reveal that the NYPD spent more than $5 million on facial recognition technology between 2019 and 2020 and has continued to invest at least $100,000 annually. The department stopped tracking accuracy in 2015 after finding error rates too high, yet continued to deploy the technology. In one instance, officers worked with the US Marshals Service to contract a facial recognition vendor to surveil a private social media account, allegedly in violation of departmental policy.
The documents further show the NYPD using facial recognition to monitor political expression. Officers reviewed social media posts using slang to reference Times Square on New Year’s Eve and conducted queries related to graffiti of a common protest slogan against the police force. In another instance, they used FRT to identify artists based solely on content in a music video. The groups also cite a December 2019 report in which two men in Times Square were subjected to FRT after being reported for speaking a Middle Eastern language and not dancing.
Amnesty International and STOP are calling on New York City lawmakers to enact legislation banning government use of facial recognition, noting that two measures already have majority sponsorship in the city council. They further urge the NYPD and the mayor to halt use of the technology immediately.
Amnesty International has previously raised awareness about how the disclosures show a pattern of surveillance disproportionately affecting black and brown communities, and now warns that the use of FRT creates a chilling effect on free expression and peaceful assembly.
The UN warned mid-June 2025 that the use of artificial intelligence, such as FRT, must comply with international human rights standards. In the report, the UN states that AI that cannot comply with human rights standards should be prohibited and urges states to “establish human rights policies for AI deployment.”
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