The POST Act Explained: NYPD Disclosures, Gaps, and 2025 Reforms

The POST Act in NYC — the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology Act — is a 2020 New York City law that requires the NYPD to publish detailed policies describing every surveillance technology it uses, how that technology works, who has access to the data, and how it is audited. The City Council strengthened the law in April 2025 after years of documented compliance gaps.¹²

The law is codified at Section 14-188 of the New York City Administrative Code (Local Law 2020/065) and passed the City Council 44 to 6 on June 18, 2020.¹³

What the Law Requires the NYPD to Disclose

The core requirement is an “impact and use policy” for every surveillance technology the department operates. Each policy has to cover ten specific categories:

The technology’s capabilities
Rules governing its use
Whether a court order is required
Security measures and encryption
Data retention
Which outside entities can access the collected data
Training requirements
Internal audit and oversight procedures
Known health and safety hazards
Potential disparate impacts on groups protected under the New York City Human Rights Law

Those categories come straight from the statute and from the NYPD’s own description of its obligations.⁴¹

Before using a new technology, the NYPD has to post a draft policy at least 90 days in advance and take public comments for 45 days. If a technology already in use starts being used for something new, the department has to publish an addendum. It also has to keep an internal log of instances when it shares data with outside agencies, and provide the city’s Commissioner of Investigation with an itemized technology list and biannual reports on new or retired tools. The NYPD Inspector General runs annual audits checking whether the department follows its own published policies.¹³

Which Technologies Have Been Disclosed

As of early 2026, the NYPD has published finalized impact and use policies for more than three dozen surveillance technologies. The published list covers a broad range of tools:⁴

Video and audio: body-worn cameras, CCTV, situational awareness cameras, covert and overt audiovisual recording devices, vehicle-mounted cameras, and drones.
Biometrics: facial recognition, iris recognition, and digital fingerprint scanning.
Tracking and location: cell-site simulators, GPS trackers, projectile GPS trackers, license plate readers, WiFi geolocation, and ShotSpotter.
Data analysis: the Domain Awareness System, social network analysis, cryptocurrency analysis, data analysis tools, and the criminal group database.
Other: mobile X-ray, drone detection, digital forensic access, remote-controlled robots, and a “transaction intercept” policy published in March 2026.

The Domain Awareness System is the central platform behind much of this. Built by Vexcel Corporation, it gives officers real-time access to 911 data, crime complaints, arrest reports, warrant histories, and personal information including associated vehicles, addresses, and phone numbers, and it integrates CCTV, license plate reader, and ShotSpotter feeds. The NYPD states that the system itself does not run facial recognition, though arrest photos pulled from it can be used as probe images in a separate facial recognition tool.⁵

Where Compliance Has Fallen Short

The NYPD published its first draft policies in January 2021. Advocates immediately argued the department had done the minimum on paper and the maximum to avoid real disclosure.³

In November 2022, the Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD published a formal audit that largely agreed. The report found the policies’ quality “insufficient” for meaningful oversight. Specifically:⁶

Many policies used generic boilerplate instead of technology-specific detail, particularly on data retention and external access.
The NYPD bundled unrelated technologies under single policies, which the Inspector General said was “contrary to the intent of the POST Act” and let the department add new tools without triggering public notice.
The department read the disparate-impact requirement as applying only to the written policy, not to the technology. Only 5 of 36 policies (14 percent) addressed the technology’s potential disparate impact on protected communities.
Because policies were so vague and so broadly grouped, the Inspector General found it “impracticable” to run the annual audits the law requires.

The Inspector General recommended individual policies for every technology, named lists of external agencies with data access, written guidelines for facial recognition probe images, and an internal tracking system for data shared outside the department.⁶

Civil liberties groups went further. The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), in a report titled “Above the Law?”, said the NYPD had “repeatedly failed to comply” with the POST Act and that its disclosures fell “far short of the reporting norms set by other police departments” under similar laws. The group recommended that lawmakers evaluate litigation to force compliance.⁷ S.T.O.P. also disputed specific NYPD claims, including the department’s position that facial recognition is not a form of artificial intelligence, and its assertion that fingerprint scan results are not shared with immigration enforcement. The group noted that 99 percent of individuals in the NYPD’s criminal group database are people of color, and said data flows to federal entities including ICE through intelligence fusion centers and the Joint Terrorism Task Force.⁸

Brooklyn Defender Services testified before the City Council in February 2025 that the NYPD had “continually failed to comply with both the letter and the spirit” of the law, using “broad and misleading interpretations to minimize transparency.” The organization said expansion of CCTV and drone networks had reached “Orwellian levels” and disproportionately targeted Black, Brown, and low-income communities.⁹

The 2025 Reforms

On April 10, 2025, the City Council passed three bills to close the loopholes the NYPD had used:²

Intro 168, sponsored by Majority Leader Amanda Farías, lets the Department of Investigation demand an itemized list of every surveillance technology the NYPD uses and requires biannual reports on technologies acquired or retired, including their access and retention policies.
Intro 233, sponsored by Council Member Crystal Hudson, requires the NYPD to publish a formal facial recognition policy and run biannual audits of facial recognition use, with results sent to the Department of Investigation and posted online. It was enacted as Local Law 2025/055 and takes effect September 1, 2025.¹⁰
Intro 480, sponsored by Council Member Julie Won, requires a separate impact and use policy for each distinct technology, requires the NYPD to name every external entity receiving surveillance data, and adds reporting on safeguards against unauthorized dissemination, disparate impacts on protected communities, and intergovernmental data sharing. It passed 40 to 0 with 7 abstentions.¹¹

Together, the three bills translate much of the Inspector General’s 2022 recommendations into binding law. As of mid-2026, the NYPD has finalized impact and use policies for 36 technologies under the original framework, plus the transaction intercept policy published in March 2026.⁴ No facial recognition audit results have been published yet under Intro 233, which did not take effect until September 2025.¹⁰

What the NYC POST Act Does Not Cover

The acronym “POST” also refers to state Peace Officer Standards and Training commissions, which handle police certification, training, and discipline. Those are a different kind of body entirely and are not what the NYC POST Act governs. The NYC law is a surveillance-transparency statute aimed at the NYPD’s technology, not an officer-certification regime.¹²

1
NYC Administrative Code Library. NYC Administrative Code § 14-188
2
NYC Council — Amanda Farías. City Council Passes Expanded POST Act Legislative Package
3
Brennan Center for Justice. Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act Resource Page
4
NYC.gov. NYPD POST Act
5
NYC.gov. Domain Awareness System NYPD Impact and Use Policy
6
NYC Department of Investigation. An Assessment of NYPD’s Response to the POST Act
7
Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. Above the Law?
8
Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. Campaign: POST Act
9
Brooklyn Defender Services. Testimony: NYPD’s Implementation of the POST Act
10
NYC Council Legislation. Int 0233-2024
11
Intro NYC. Int 0480-2024
12
National Conference of State Legislatures. Law Enforcement Certification and Discipline