Brooks-Powers questions administration on emergency alerts and AI rumors

And the last question for this panel.

This is from Councilmember Silvina Brooks-Powers.

She says, my district is home to JFK Airport and to the coastal Rockaway neighborhoods that depend on emergency alerts.

What might an AI-driven attack

on emergency systems or a major infrastructure look like?

Is there currently a plan for an AI-driven attack on critical infrastructure and relevant emergency systems?

And then for NYSEM, during storms and flooding emergencies, it can be hard for New Yorkers to know what they're seeing on social media is real or AI-generated.

How is NYSEM working to make their messaging clearly legitimate and to cut through the noise of AI-generated rumors?

For the question on notifications, I'll defer to my colleague, CJ Dixon.

Yes, so for an AI-based attack that is specifically a cybersecurity attack, there are notification requirements that already exist under law,

72 hours for a confirmed breach, 24 hours for a breach related with extortion, and then 30 days for victim notification.

So there are plans in place for incident response in the event of a cyber attack against any critical infrastructure owned by the city, and that includes if that attack is perpetrated by an artificial intelligence system.

Thanks.

And on the New York City Emergency Management front, I'll make two quick points.

One, I think that is a real risk, and I appreciate the council member raising it.

It's one of the reasons that we invest very heavily in backup systems.

So several months ago, a very well-known and established notification provider had a seven-hour global outage where notifications were not able to be sent out.

That's something that we take very seriously, and which is why for over a decade now, New York City Emergency Management has invested in the backup system.

So as you went across the country, you saw many large jurisdictions saying to their constituents, you know, sign up for this WhatsApp group or follow us on social media if you want alerts tonight.

In New York City, we did not have to do that because we had a backup system that continued to work, so that disruption was averted.

As far as...

You know, misdis or malinformation, you know, generated by AI, that is a valid concern.

It's why we recommend that New Yorkers follow us on our official channels, which are verified through NotifyNYC.

You can sign up at NYC.gov forward slash notify.

You can sign up by short code or download the NotifyNYC mobile app that we operate in concert with OTI.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Brooks Powers wanted me to note that, for example, during the nor'easter, there was a video that was going around about a tornado that apparently caused a lot of confusion and chaos.

And so she wanted to share that.

that for context.