Cypurr Session: Landlord Surveillance

In this session, we will be talking about landlord tech, how it exacerbates housing injustice, and what rights tenants have to protect themselves. Landlord tech, also referred to as property or prop tech, refers to a range of tools used by the real estate industry across the tenancy lifecycle.

Examples of landlord tech include closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, facial recognition technologies, access control applications, digital payment and tenant screening platforms and other “smart building” software.

We will discuss how biometric data collection, algorithmic decision-making, and surveillance practices embedded in landlord tech place many tenants in the path of extractive data mechanisms and enable unfair housing practices.

Special Speaker: Paula Garcia-Salazar, Staff Attorney at the @legalaidnyc

Recommended Reading and Resources:

• “Landlord Technologies of Gentrification: Facial Recognition and Building Access Technologies in New York City Homes”
• Landlord Tech Watch

This event will also feature a Q + A from Ridgewood Tenants Union discussing tenants rights and organizing in your building.

The Ridgewood Tenants Union is an all-volunteer and tenant-led anti-gentrification group working together to grow the power of working-class tenants and unhoused people in Ridgewood, Maspeth, Glendale, and Middle Village. Founded in 2014 and demanding safe and stable housing for all, they organize together to fight displacement.