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Cuomo: Pass the gas
Gov orders National Grid to restore cut-off service
Photo by Paul Martinka
Is your landlord spying on you?
Proposed law would limit facial recognition technology
Sunday, 10/27/2019 • 11 am-2 pm • 285 Jay Street, Brooklyn NY 11201
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PE N
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By Ben Verde
Brooklyn Paper
Governor Andrew Cuomo
ordered National Grid on Friday
to provide more than
1,100 new customers with
gas following an investigation
into the British-based utility
company, which has refused
to hookup new patrons amid
a months-long standoff with
the state over a hotly contested
pipeline project.
“It is the fundamental responsibility
of our utilities
to provide reliable service,”
Cuomo said. “Make no mistake
– New York will hold National
Grid accountable.”
The gas provider, which
operates under a state-granted
monopoly in Brooklyn,
Queens and parts of Long
Island, announced a moratorium
of new customers in
late May — shortly after state
regulators nixed a controversial
scheme to construct a 23-
mile gas pipeline off the coast
of Coney Island.
Cuomo’s demands only extend
to the 1,100 New Yorkers
who the gas provider refused
to reconnect after they temporarily
shut off their gasoline
service, and do not apply
to brand new customers,
who will remain without gas
Governor Cuomo announced an investigation into
National Grid on Friday for denying gas service to
new customers.
for the time being.
Many state leaders have
accused National Grid of
strong-arming the state into
green-lighting the pipeline by
holding gas customers hostage.
The utility company could
face millions of dollars in
fines resulting from the investigation
— which centers
on whether the company properly
planned to meet the needs
of New Yorkers during the
winter, according to the Governor’s
office.
Assemblyman Robert Carroll
(D-Park Slope) — a frequent
critic of National Grid
since they launched their moratorium
— lauded the Governor’s
decision and called
on Attorney General Letitia
James to further investigate
National Grid.
“I applaud the Governor
for finally standing up to National
Grid and calling them
out on their mendacious, disingenuous
campaign to deny
people natural gas,” Carroll
said. “What they are really
trying to do is coerce the state
into approving the Williams
Pipeline.
State Sen. Andrew Gounardes
(D–Bay Ridge) also
praised Cuomo’s decision,
but called for additional action
on behalf of completely
new customers.
“We still need to determine
if there are more eligible residents
whose service must be
restored and wait for the results
of the larger investigation,”
Gounardes said.
A National Grid spokeswoman
said they company
is disappointed in the state’s
decision, and it will look into
temporary solutions to reconnect
customers.
“We stand by our analysis
and there are very real
gas supply constraints in
the northeast,” said Karen
Young.
By Rose Adams
Brooklyn Paper
A Park Slope lawmaker
wants to rein in landlords from
using facial recognition technology
to track tenants.
City Councilman Brad
Lander (D–Park Slope) introduced
the Keep Entry to
Your home Surveillance-Free
Act — which he’s branded the
KEYS Act, not the KEYHSF
Act — that would give tenants
the option to demand
traditional locks instead of
“smart keys” that rely on facial
scanners and smartphone
apps, which he claims could
be used to track tenants movements
and collect their personal
data.
According to Lander, unscrupulous
landlords have
used the data to accuse tenants
of violating their lease and
threaten them with eviction.
“Clearly, some landlords
are trying to build cases against
their tenants,” said the Councilman.
“You might be letting
someone stay with you, and
they might think that was an
AirBnB tenant.”
The complaints against the
“smart” locks first surfaced in
May, when over 130 rent-stabilized
tenants claimed that
their Brownsville buildings’
facial scanners allowed their
landlords to keep tabs on their
comings and goings.
Others have argued that facial
recognition tends to misidentify
people of color, and
that smartphone-activated key
apps are not accessible to older,
less-tech-savvy residents.
In one case, an elderly man
in Manhattan filed a lawsuit
against his landlord after he
was locked out of his apartment
building, where his landlord
had installed Latch — a lock
accessible via phone app.
However, smart key companies
have argued that the backlash
against them is rooted in
misunderstanding.
“SmartLock captures only
five percent of a user’s facial
information without the use of
any photographs, making the
biometric data indistinguishable
to the human eye so how
the user looks is not known or
tracked,” said a spokeswoman
for the company.
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