NY Budget Quietly Bans Biometric Fare Payments on the MTA

New York State lawmakers quietly inserted language into the latest state budget restricting the implementation of facial recognition technology on the MTA, New York City’s subway network. The thick document orders the MTA to “not use, or arrange for the use, of biometric identifying technology, including but not limited to facial recognition technology, to enforce rules relating to the payment of fares.”

The last-minute implementation of this language in the state budget effectively bans the use of any biometric technology for fare payment and for enforcing fare payment, without having first entertained public debate on the issue.

The state budget process in New York allows for the inclusion of policy issues as part of the budget bills, which must be passed by April 1 each year. This urgency, combined with the extensive scope of the budget, provides a conducive environment for legislators and the governor to add measures that might struggle to pass on their own merits in a more visible or contested legislative process.

It isn’t clear who specifically pushed for the insertion of the anti-biometrics language into the latest budget, but State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani defended it as a privacy-protecting measure in rather extreme terms in comments to Gothamist. “There has long been a concern [facial recognition] could invade upon people’s lives through expanded surveillance and through the criminalization of just existing within the public sphere,” he said.

The biometric technology restriction comes amid heightened concern about safety on public transit across a number of cities. A recent stabbing on the Los Angeles Metro has prompted authorities at the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority to consider the implementation of facial recognition (among other tools) to enhance security.

Such deployments may not necessarily be ruled out by the language in New York’s latest budget, which appears to be concerned primarily with fare payments. Presumably, installing a biometric security system that is not at all connected to fare payments, such as a facial recognition system on a subway platform, would still be permitted, should authorities wish to go in that direction.

Source: Gothamist

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April 29, 2024 – by Alex Perala