The NYPD wants to adopt a new AI-driven technology that will act like a roving cell phone tower and help investigators quickly find suspects they are searching for — but critics worry it will help police track the whereabouts of innocent New Yorkers.
The new mobile surveillance system, known as FalcoNet, is a cell-site simulator that can be mounted on police vehicles or drones and can even be hidden in a backpack.
It’s run by Cognyte, an Israeli technology firm. The NYPD is poised to sign a three-year, $750,500 sole-source contract with Cognyte to use its tech.
A portable cell-site simulator mimics a real cell tower. As it rolls through a neighborhood, any nearby cell phone links up with the simulator, which captures each phone’s unique identification number, which can then be traced to its user.
Cognyte, which relies heavily on artificial intelligence, has been accused by human rights groups of doing business with oppressive governments that use surveillance technology to target dissidents and political opponents. FalcoNet, meanwhile, has raised the ire of civil liberties groups worried that the technology is used to unconstitutionally track people not being sought by law enforcement.
Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News
(Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News)
Daniel Schwarz, senior privacy and technology strategist for the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the Cognyte contract “raises serious concerns about the [Police Department’s] commitment to transparency and to New Yorkers’ privacy rights.”
“Cell-site simulators require warrants because they are highly intrusive, dragnet surveillance,” Schwarz added. “And this new tech goes even further by incorporating undisclosed AI capabilities that analyze people’s behaviors.”
Cognyte did not respond to requests for comment.
The NYPD already uses other cell-site simulators to track down suspects as well as people who are missing or suicidal, but officials say FalcoNet — which will be mounted on department vehicles — is currently the best one available.
“The department explored different cell-site simulators and determined that this device best met the needs of the NYPD,” a spokesperson said.
The benefits of such technology are immeasurable, the spokesperson added, noting a Feb. 9 incident in which police were able to rescue a 15-year-old girl abducted from a group home in Queens and ultimately rescued in Brooklyn as police tracked her frantic text messages.
If the contract is approved, the spokesperson said, police will not use FalcoNet to listen to calls or collect information, such as text messages, from phones not involved in their investigations — or share such data with other agencies.
The department’s strict policy regarding the use of cell-site simulators demands that when the technology is used in investigations, detectives are required to get a warrant for the information first, officials said.
In exigent circumstances — including the search for someone missing or threatening suicide — cops have a green light to use the technology without a warrant, but must document the emergency and obtain the warrant within 48 hours of using the cell-site simulator, they said.
Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News
(Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News)
Only four members of TARU, the NYPD’s Technical Assistance Response Unit, will be authorized to use FalcoNet, using “laptops that operate on a closed, stand-alone network,” according to the NYPD’s policy.
Jerome Greco, a supervising attorney with The Legal Aid Society’s Digital Forensics Unit, said concerns about how FalcoNet will be used are not hyperbole, noting the disclosure a decade ago that the NYPD had used cell-site simulator technology more than 1,000 times without having a written policy and without getting a warrant.
“The NYPD says in their policies that this isn’t being used for intercepting content,” Greco said. “But there’s no way for us to absolutely know that.”
The NYPD posts reports on its website regarding its use of drones, but does not indicate the times they use their cell phone tracking technology. It does not appear that this will change if the Cognyte contract is finalized, critics say.
Eleni Manis, research director for the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, or STOP, said that without such disclosures it’s difficult to fully know how the NYPD is using the technology.
“It doesn’t report case-by-case use of cell-site simulators,” Manis said. “So we can’t hold them accountable for whom they target.”
The city is in the process of reviewing comments made by the public regarding the contract. It will then decide whether it should be approved.
“We are reviewing the proposed contract,” a City Hall spokesman said.
The NYPD has had issues in the past with technology that uses AI.
Last month, the department announced that it was reviewing hundreds of instances in which officers used Flock Safety, a controversial nationwide license plate reader network that uses artificial intelligence, after two advocacy groups collected data showing that at least two dozen officers used Flock’s database 1,710 times — even though the department doesn’t have a contract with the company.
