Even the NYPD Thought the Knightscope K5 Was a Joke

It's not easy to get a look into the inner workings of the NYPD—especially its surveillance program. In spite of the POST Act, a law passed by the City Council in 2020 demanding more clarity and transparency from the department in terms of when and how technology like drones, facial recognition software, and those comically dystopian robot dogs are deployed, the police department remains resistant to giving New Yorkers a peek behind the curtain in terms of when and how they're being watched by the cops. 

Last week, at a City Council hearing led by the committees for technology, public safety, and oversight and investigations on the NYPD's implementation of the POST Act, Department of Investigation Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber identified the drone program as its problem child in terms of accountability. But according to a recent cache of NYPD documents obtained by the Legal Aid Society, including internal memos, purchase records, and operations orders, there's so much more to the NYPD's surveillance technology arsenal—and it gets weirder, dumber, and more dangerous, according to Legal Aid's director of digital forensics, Jerome Greco.

"The thing that I find personally to be the most interesting is that Excel spreadsheet that lists all these vendors and which units in the NYPD are using these tools. This is the first time I've seen it so easily accessible and broken down," Greco told Hell Gate. "When I see the names of the units, or encounter officers who are in those units, now I will be like, 'Oh, I know he has access to this tool.'"