The Legal Aid Society and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP secured an appellate ruling requiring the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to disclose all documents related to the purchase of novel and invasive electronic surveillance technologies – which include cellphone tracking devices and potentially previously unknown surveillance tools – from March 27, 2007 to October 27, 2020.

The decision comes in response to an appeal filed by the NYPD which sought to relieve the Department of their requirement to provide records pursuant to a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request first made by The Legal Aid Society in 2020. Legal Aid’s FOIL request sought access to all documents related to the NYPD’s purchase of surveillance technology through the special expense budget (SPEX budget), a program that allowed the NYPD to shield certain transactions from the public eye.

Despite the New York City Council’s enactment of the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act in 2020 — which introduced new requirements for the NYPD to publicly disclose surveillance technologies used by the agency — the NYPD continued to evade disclosure of thousands of documents related to SPEX contracts.

“In a world of increasing police surveillance budgets, the Appellate Court’s decision is a win for the bare minimum required for accountability: transparency,” said Jerome D. Greco, Legal Aid’s Director of Digital Forensics. “For years the NYPD has often hidden its purchases of surveillance tools, depriving the public the ability to scrutinize and challenge its decisions.”

“To further limit the NYPD’s ability to conduct its surveillance decisions in the shadows, the City Council needs to pass legislation to close any loopholes the NYPD claims exist in the POST Act,” he continued.