Speaker Menin questions DOT on age verification for City Bike

To Commissioner Flynn, in August I sent you a letter urging age verification for city bikes.

I made clear there are numerous options on the table.

Obviously, you could use a Muni ID system.

So again, the letter was very clear.

It does not involve utilizing, you don't need to use facial recognition technology.

There's so many other ways to do this.

We currently have a Muni ID system.

The SAFE Act being passed at the state level on social media companies, both the New York Attorney General and the Governor identify numerous ways for age verification.

Earlier this month, there was a fatal accident involving two teenage girls, one of whom was 15.

Since that accident, I got a response from you in the letter, so I want to understand what is the agency going to do in terms of this issue.

Thank you, Speaker.

The safety of young New Yorkers is our top priority, and certainly at DOT we're most focused on the street safety, but also online safety, as you noted.

We do appreciate Lyft's efforts to protect young riders and to explore age-appropriate access to city bike that preserves data privacy, security, accuracy, and equity.

And as an administration, we're committed to that.

So I know that there's very productive discussions going on right now with Lyft, and we're exploring all possible avenues to achieve both goals, street safety and online safety for young New Yorkers.

Okay, and I mean, I should clarify, we're doing a bill on this.

The bill is not ready to be released today.

It will be released in the coming weeks, and that will mandate an age verification system.

So just wanted to make sure that I express that.