The Legal Aid Society, Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York, Appellate Advocates, the Center for Appellate Litigation, the Office of the Appellate Defender, and the Parole Preparation Project submitted comments opposing a proposed regulation by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) that would authorize the scanning and potential destruction of legal mail flagged by automated contraband detection systems.

The proposed rule would expand the use of scanning technology, allowing DOCCS to confiscate and destroy privileged attorney-client correspondence without requiring human review or verification.

RaySecur, the company that currently contracts with DOCCS under an emergency rule, has itself stated that its technology is designed only to flag items for further inspection — not to make final determinations positively identifying contraband.

The organizations site this overreliance on flawed technology, along with lack of procedural safeguards, an opaque process, and other concerns in their official comments.

“This misguided rule gives unchecked power to machines never designed to have the final say over privileged legal mail,” said Antony Gemmell, Supervising Attorney with Legal Aid’s Prisoners’ Rights Project. “By allowing destruction of legal mail based on unverified scans for ‘potential contraband,’ DOCCS is building a system primed for error — one that impairs constitutionally protected attorney-client communications and endangers the clients we serve.”