On March 13, Leqaa Kordia will have spent a year in ICE detention, despite a judge twice ordering her release. NYPD arrested Kordia at a pro-Palestinian protest in 2024, but quickly dropped the charges and sealed the records. Those records should never have seen the light of day again. Instead, NYPD shared them with ICE, who used them to initiate deportation proceedings.
This isn’t a one-off leak. It’s the predictable consequence of NYC’s out-of-control surveillance infrastructure, which is designed to make data sharing between the city and other agencies frictionless—so easy that leaks and abuse are almost inevitable. The Department of Correction records all calls into and out of jails, including privileged attorney-client calls, and shares them with prosecutors, and there is evidence that ICE may also have access to those call recordings. NYPD uses its discredited gang database to partner with ICE in arresting dozens of New Yorkers on inflated charges. The Fire Department shares its controversial facial recognition tool with NYPD, letting NYPD circumvent its own ban on the technology. And if that doesn’t work, NYPD borrows the same tool from the US Marshals. The list of abuses goes on. Surveillance data gets around. That’s what it’s designed to do.
Mayor Mamdani has condemned these practices in his own words. To resist ICE’s deportation campaign, he pledged to “protect all personal data from [being shared with] other jurisdictions.” He blasted facial recognition for “criminaliz[ing] just existing.” He denounced NYPD’s gang database for targeting youth based on “whether they go out late, photos they put on social media, so much of the facts of life of being a young New Yorker.”
But eight weeks into his administration, Mamdani has yet to act. The Department of Corrections still pays its technology vendor to record all calls into and out of NYC jails. NYPD still uses facial recognition tools, even as its officers manipulate photos before submitting them for analysis and misuse the technology to jail innocent New Yorkers—just because the software tells them to. The gang database still enrolls thousands of almost exclusively Black and Latino New Yorkers who have done nothing wrong, with no oversight.
It’s time for someone to take action, and that’s why the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), New York’s own surveillance watchdog, has produced the roadmap that Mayor Mamdani should be following. In our new report we provide the mayor with the concrete steps he should be following to end surveillance programs and data sharing that endanger New Yorkers—steps Mayor Mamdani can take right now, though the powers vested in his office, to protect us. Included in the report are specific actions Mamdani can take to block collaboration with ICE; dump the gang database and the illegal Suspect Index; end police abuse of facial recognition and social media monitoring tools; stop illegal protest surveillance; and more.
In February, Leqaa Kordia suffered seizures in ICE custody. She was chained to a bed while she recovered, then returned to detention. None of this had to happen. She would be home right now— would never have left home—had NYPD not shared her sealed records with ICE.
Every New Yorker should know that the risks of runaway surveillance technology and uncontrolled data leaks extend far beyond her case. The Trump administration has made clear that federal agencies should help themselves to local police tools, data, and resources. The Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies are conditioning federal funding on data-sharing agreements. In this context, every surveillance tool and database isn’t just a danger to the immigrants that ICE targets today, they’re a clear and present danger to every New Yorker the federal government may target tomorrow: scientists researching disfavored topics like climate change; people seeking abortions or gender-affirming care and their healthcare providers; protestors and the journalists who cover them; organizations pursuing diversity initiatives; lawyers and judges challenging federal overreach; and on, and on. We’ve already seen the sobering truth that federal agents are building surveillance databases on protestors—and killing people who watch them back.
Mr. Mayor, S.T.O.P. and all New Yorkers who care about civil liberties and the rule of law call on you to take action now. Before more ordinary citizens get caught up in the web of misused surveillance data and before more innocent people lose their lives. We call on you to read our new report, and act now. Dismantle New York City’s surveillance state.
Manis is Research Director at the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.). Dahl is Executive Director at S.T.O.P.
