LinkNYC Kiosks in New York
| LinkNYC Kiosks in New York | |
|---|---|
| Short Title | LinkNYC Kiosks Can Track New Yorkers |
| Location | New York, New York |
| Date | 2019 |
| Solove Harm | Surveillance, Aggregation |
| Information | Location, Computer Device, Behavioral |
| Threat Actors | Google, CityBridge |
| Individuals | |
| Affected | New Yorkers |
| High Risk Groups | |
| Tangible Harms | |
The LinkNYC kiosks, that are installed all over New York City are tracking individuals.
Description
LinkNYC kiosks are installed all over New York City and provide public Wi-Fi, free domestic phone calls, and USB charging ports.
They are outfitted with sensors and cameras that track the movements of everyone in their vicinity. Once a person connects, the network will record their location every time they come within 150 feet of a kiosk.Surveillance
The kiosks are owned and operated by CityBridge (a consortium of companies that includes investment and leadership from Sidewalk Labs — a subsidiary of Alphabet, the parent company of Google).
Although CityBridge calls this information “anonymized” because it doesn’t include one's name or email address — the system instead records a unique identifier for each device that connects — when millions of these data points are collected and analyzed, such data can be used to track people’s movements and infer intimate details of their lives. This is an example of Aggregation.
Laws and Regulations
Sources
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/opinion/cities-privacy-surveillance.html