Josh Epstein of Brooklyn Defender Services testifies on data surveillance risks

Good morning.

My name is Josh Epstein.

I'm the Director of Immigration at Brooklyn Defenders Queens Office.

Thank you so much to the committee and to Chair Encarnacion for hosting today's hearing.

We are grateful to the Mayor for signing Executive Order 13 and to the IRC for their work to strengthen New York City's compliance with local sanctuary laws.

And completing a thorough audit of agency practices.

This critical process helped elucidate the ways federal immigration enforcement is targeting New Yorkers and highlighted the ways that the city can tighten protections to make New Yorkers safe for all.

The City Council has taken steps to limit city agencies'ability to facilitate civil immigration enforcement, such as New York City's groundbreaking detainer discretion laws.

And the Executive Order 13 report highlighted the interpretation and implementation of these laws have left gaps, and these gaps expose immigrant New Yorkers to ICE detention.

The City Council, as my colleagues have mentioned, can pass the New York City Trust Act, which will strengthen the enforceability of New York City's existing detainer protections.

Brooklyn Defenders is grateful that as part of the audit, the data sharing agreements between the Department of Corrections, the NYPD, and third-party technology vendors were reviewed.

Relying on outside vendors in an era of mass data, accumulation by big tech companies, and the federal government carries serious risks for immigrant New Yorkers, but also

the civil rights and liberties of all New Yorkers.

We're also glad the IRC will continue reviewing the contracts for data sharing agreements between city agencies and third parties.

We urge the mayor's office and the IRC to review NYPD's policies regarding audits of the domain awareness system, and the domain awareness system is NYPD's surveillance platform.

That serves as a hub for aggregating data under NYPD's control, and this vast system is available to officers on their cell phones, and it has not had an independent audit in over a decade.

In correctional settings, the use of digital surveillance technology also raises risks of data leaks that could lead to immigration enforcement in violation of our city's sanctuary policies.

The jail phone call systems operated by Securus not only record jail phone calls, but also store voice prints, a form of biometric data, on every individual who uses the system.

This includes family members, friends, community members, children of people experiencing incarceration.

And this problem is compounded by the sheer volume of data that the city allows the NYPD and DOC to collect.

And while asking minimal questions about who is accessing it, why, and how it is being used, we can't meaningfully protect it from misuse.

Thank you to the committee for hosting this hearing.

Thank you.