Police departments across the state are using military-grade surveillance equipment to spy on New Yorkers, especially Black and Brown people. Technologies like facial recognition, predictive policing, cellphone-spying devices, and drones are deployed without the public’s knowledge or consent. 

Law enforcement is also collecting massive amounts of people’s deeply personal biometric information, including our DNA, and putting it in rogue databases that could be used to put innocent people behind bars. And New Yorkers, especially those from over-policed communities, find themselves targeted by law enforcement for their activism.

The NYCLU is working to expose and curtail police use of surveillance equipment, to reign in law enforcement’s invasive data collection, and to prevent police from surveilling New Yorkers based on characteristics like ideology or religion.