BILL NUMBER: S8004
SPONSOR: MAY
 
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the civil rights law, in relation to prohibiting the use
of biometric surveillance system or biometric surveillance information
in places of public accommodation
 
PURPOSE:
To safeguard biometric information, the measurable physiological,
biological, or behavioral characteristics that are attributable to an
individual New Yorker, from surveillance.
 
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:
Section one of the bill sets forth definitions, bars places and provid-
ers of public accommodation from utilizing biometric surveillance with-
out meeting specific conditions for collection, clarifies that these
provisions are not to apply in instances where biometric information is
used for the sole purpose of user authentication, sets forth penalties
for violations of these provisions and bars biometric information
obtained without meeting these preconditions from being used in criminal
proceedings.
Section 2 is the effective date.
 
JUSTIFICATION:
Biometric information includes facial characteristics, fingerprint char-
acteristics, hand characteristics, eye characteristics, vocal character-
istics, and any other physical characteristics that can be used, singu-
larly or in combination with each other or with other information, to
establish individual identity. As the use of biometric information for
surveillance purposes becomes increasingly common, concerns have been
raised by advocates for privacy and civil liberties relating to the
effectiveness and ethical implications of such technology.
Perhaps the well-known example of this is facial recognition technology,
which has been shown to be less accurate when analyzing faces of people
of color than when analyzing white faces. A 2018 study from MIT and
Stanford University examining commercially available facial analysis
programs created by three major companies found that the three programs'
rates of error in determining the gender of light-skinned men were never
worse than 0.8%, but the rates of error for dark-skinned women were
significantly higher, with two of the programs showing an error rate of
more than 34%.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) ran a test of another
lyidel'aVailable facial recognition tool by comparing photos of members
of Congress with a database of mugshots, and the software incorrectly
matched 28 members of Congress with individuals who had been arrested
for a crime. A disproportionate number of the incorrect matches were
members of color.
This evidence of bias and inaccuracy in biometric surveillance is
particularly troubling in the context of law enforcement and security,
where an incorrect match has the potential to have devastating conse-
quences.
This legislation would ensure that racially biased, unreliable biometric
technology is not used by operators of places of public accommodation.
This legislation stipulates that biometric surveillance technology may
not be used to measure the physiological, biological, or behavioral
characteristics that are attributable to an individual New Yorker except
in instances where an individual has provided express written consent to
be the subject of such surveillance. All New Yorkers should feel free to
enter a place of public accommodation without fearing that a racially
biased biometric surveillance technology will be collected or used
against them.
 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
2025-2026: A6211 (Simone)
2023-2024: S7135 (Hoylman-Sigal) / A7625 (Simone)
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None.
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.