New York City, home to the nation’s largest rapid transit system, will install surveillance cameras in every New York City subway car by 2025, Gov. Cathy Hatchul announced earlier this week. From the report: Khachul said the move is aimed at boosting riders’ confidence in subway safety, as ridership still lags behind pre-pandemic levels. It also follows a series of high-profile crimes that have occurred on the transit system, including the rape of a female tourist on a subway platform this month; a mass shooting on a Brooklyn subway car in April that injured 10 passengers; and the fatal shooting of a Goldman Sachs employee on a train in May.
But the decision to install cameras in subway cars worries some privacy advocates, who say it will increase the level of surveillance on New Yorkers without necessarily making the subway safer. Metro stations in the city already have CCTV cameras. “It’s terrible. It seems like a terrible surveillance PR move just to increase ridership,” said Albert Fox Kahn, founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), a nonprofit that aims to dominate digital surveillance in New York. – York. . “We have no idea how they will share data with federal and out-of-state partners,” Fox Kahn said.
