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[New York](/section/nyregion)|Security Robots.
DigiDog. GPS Launchers. Welcome to New York.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/11/nyregion/nypd-digidog-robot-crime.html
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Security Robots. DigiDog. GPS Launchers. Welcome to New York.
=============================================================

Mayor Eric Adams unveiled an array of high-tech security devices that he
said the Police Department would use to ensure New Yorkers’ safety.

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Mayor Eric Adams
said the Police Department would again deploy robotic dogs, nearly two
years after it had stopped using them.Credit...Jeenah Moon for The New York
Times

By Dana Rubinstein

April 11, 2023

The police-cordoned-off block of Times Square on Tuesday made the
so-called crossroads of the world look even more dystopian than usual.

There were two security robots that onlookers compared in appearance to
R2-D2 from “Star Wars” or a Dalek from “Doctor Who,” as well as a
gun-shaped device that police officers can use to shoot GPS-enabled
trackers onto fleeing vehicles.

Then there was the return of Digidog, a robotic dog that the police
would use in life-threatening situations.

And presiding over all of it was Mayor Eric Adams, who told the
assembled news media that his continuing efforts to combat crime would
most assuredly include
robotic dogs
— almost two years to the day after the New York Police Department bowed
to public criticism and stopped using the technology.

“Digidog is out of the pound,” the mayor said.

Mr. Adams rose to power in 2021 with the argument that only he,
a retired police captain and a police critic,
could restore order to New York City streets without endangering New
Yorkers’ civil liberties.

But a year into Mr. Adams’s tenure, his public safety agenda
remains a work in progress.
His first year in office saw a drop in shootings and murders, but an
overall rise in major crimes, including burglaries and robberies.

Mr. Adams and his police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, on Tuesday said
that since the advent of bicycles and fingerprinting and mug shots,
technology has been, and will continue to be, key to enhancing public
safety. Notwithstanding the budgetary headwinds, the mayor suggested he
had no plans to cut back on these sorts of investments.

Image

A police officer
demonstrates the use of StarChase, a device used to shoot a GPS-enabled
projectile at a car in order to track the vehicle.Credit...Jeenah Moon for The New York
Times

Image

The so-called K5
Autonomous Security Robot is designed to send intelligence back to the
Police Department and to deter crime.Credit...Jeenah Moon for The New York
Times

“We are scanning the globe on finding technology that will ensure this
city is safe for New Yorkers, visitors and whomever is here in the
city,” Mr. Adams said. “This is the beginning of a series of rollouts.”

The mayor’s predecessor, Bill de Blasio, took a contrasting stance,
deciding in 2021 to cut short the city’s contract for the robotic dog.

A Police Department at a Critical Moment
----------------------------------------

### The New York Police Department is facing challenges on several fronts.

- **A High-Tech Force:** Mayor Eric Adams [unveiled an array of
devices](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/11/nyregion/nypd-digidog-robot-crime.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-nypd&variant=show&region=MAIN_CONTENT_1&block=storyline_top_links_recirc),
including robotic dogs, that he said the Police Department would use
to ensure New Yorkers’ safety.
- **Police Benevolent Association:** Patrick J. Lynch, the head
of the police officers’ union in New York City, which just
negotiated a new contract, [said that he would leave the
position](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/11/nyregion/patrick-lynch-police-benevolent-association.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-nypd&variant=show&region=MAIN_CONTENT_1&block=storyline_top_links_recirc) at
the end of his term.
- **Dismissed Cases:** Commissioner Keechant Sewell [rejected
more than half the disciplinary
recommendations](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/16/nyregion/nypd-discipline-recommendations.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-nypd&variant=show&region=MAIN_CONTENT_1&block=storyline_top_links_recirc) sent
to her in 2022 by an independent civilian panel that examines
misconduct, according to the group’s figures.
- **A Settlement With Protesters:** New York City agreed to [pay
$21,500 to each of hundreds of
demonstrators](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/01/nyregion/nypd-kettling-blm-protests-settlement.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-nypd&variant=show&region=MAIN_CONTENT_1&block=storyline_top_links_recirc) who
were violently corralled by the police during racial justice
protests in 2020.

“It’s creepy, alienating and sends the wrong message to New Yorkers,”
Mr. de Blasio’s spokesman said at the time.

Now, New York City is acquiring two robot dogs for a sum of roughly
$750,000, using asset forfeiture funds. Officials said the dogs would
not be used for routine patrol, but rather for life-threatening
situations, including bomb threats. The robotic dog on display in Times
Square was borrowed from the Fire Department, which has been
deploying
robot dogs since last year.

A spokeswoman for the manufacturer, Boston Dynamics, noted that in
October, Florida police used a robot dog to help rescue
a 3-year-old hostage.
(Boston Dynamics calls its dogs “Spot.”)

Mr. Adams has
a longstanding interest in unorthodox policing technologies.
As Brooklyn borough president, he held a news conference to demonstrate
a lasso-like device for restraining emotionally disturbed people called
the BolaWrap, in which his friend, Frank Carone, was an investor. When
Mr. Adams became mayor, Mr. Carone became his chief of staff.

The city’s commitment to buy these robotic dogs comes just a week after
the mayor
directed his agencies
to cut their budgets by 4 percent for the coming fiscal year.

The Police Department’s chief of department, Jeffrey Maddrey, said the
use of the remote-controlled robot dogs will be subject to his approval.
As he spoke, a robotic dog trotted in front of him.

Separately, the Police Department will test out a five-foot-tall robot,
manufactured by Knightscope, in the Times Square subway station starting
this summer. The department’s seven-month contract, which includes three
months to ready the device for use and four months for testing it, will
cost $12,250, according to a City Hall spokesman. Initially, the robot
will be accompanied by a police officer.

The so-called K5 Autonomous Security Robot, which will be on display in
Times Square for two more days, is designed to send intelligence back to
the Police Department and to deter crime. Similar robots have been used
to
patrol
Lowe’s parking lots and
to keep
homeless encampments away from a San Francisco animal shelter.

The Police Department also signed a roughly $19,500, temporary
subscription with StarChase for seven devices that will enable the
police to tag vehicles with GPS trackers.

“What we want to do is to mitigate as many high-speed chases in the city
as possible,” Mr. Adams said.

Ms. Sewell said that neither the robotic dog nor the K5 would be
equipped with facial recognition technology.

But significant questions remain, including what information the robots
will collect and who will have access to that information.

Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties
Union, argued that the Police Department routinely fails to adequately
comply with a
law
requiring it to disclose details about its use of new technologies, a
position that the Police Department disputes. .

“We’re left to concoct a narrative about what this technology can and
can’t do, what risks it presents, what mitigation of those risks is in
place, but we have no hard information,” Ms. Lieberman said. “And all
we’re left with is Digidog running around town as this dystopian
surveillance machine of questionable value and quite potentially serious
privacy consequences.”

The announcement also sparked immediate condemnation from Albert Fox
Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight
Project.

“The N.Y.P.D. is turning bad science fiction into terrible policing,”
Mr. Cahn said in a statement. “New York deserves real safety, not a
knockoff ‘RoboCop.’”

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