Contributing Writers: Azad Ali, Tangerine Clarke,
Nelson King, Vinette K. Pryce, Bert Wilkinson
GENERAL INFORMATION (718) 260-2500
Caribbean L 10 ife, JULY 30-AUG. 5, 2021
By Sam Pierre
After a long day, you want
dinner from your favorite restaurant,
but the rain, exhaustion,
or the distance keeps you
home. So, you open an app
and order on your phone, and
with the push of a button,
satisfy your craving, support
a local restaurant, and give
a delivery worker a great tip.
Win-win-win.
Except for one note: in
that process, you’ve provided
a lot of personal information.
Your name, your address,
your phone number, your
credit card information, your
food allergies, and more. This
information is tied together
with all your previous orders:
the cake for your child’s school
birthday party and the soup
when you had the flu. This
information says a lot about
you, and it’s held by a technology
company that has specific
products and policies designed
to keep your personal information
safe. But because of
legislation being pushed by
the City Council right now,
all of that private information
might soon be up for grabs.
City Council is pushing for
dangerous legislation to force
delivery platforms to hand
over the private information
of their customers without
their permission. This is scary
for numerous reasons but for
the Haitian American Caucus,
the prospect of this information
being exposed and without
any protection is uniquely
concerning.
For the last year, the Haitian
American Caucus has
worked with DoorDash to
increase food access for vulnerable,
food-insecure communities
across the city. We
provide DoorDash credit to
Haitian New Yorkers, enabling
people who are sick to have a
meal delivered, giving parents
a night off from figuring out
a meal for their children, and
removing the worry of how
to afford another dinner. Our
ability to keep those families’
personal information private
and confidential is critical
especially since many of our
members are immigrants and
are already facing hardships
around surviving in New York
City without permanent residency
or citizenship status.
If this legislation were to
become law, we would have to
reassess whether it was wise
to provide these resources to
our communities, since Door-
Dash – and any other delivery
platform – could be forced
to turn over our members’
names, physical addresses,
phone numbers, and entire
order and transaction histories
to any restaurant who
wants it. What’s more, this
potential law doesn’t require
restaurants to keep that information
safe. It can be shared
with government organizations,
printed and left out on a
countertop, or handed to discriminatory
groups who wish
our community harm.
This bill may be well-intentioned
but right now, it has
more risks than benefits. At
the very least, City Council
should let customers decide if
their account information is
exposed and outline specific
requirements for restaurants
to keep this data safe. Restaurants
are often small businesses,
lacking the technical
capabilities for both securing
data, and knowing how to follow
other local, state, and federal
data privacy regulations.
If these businesses have your
information, they should be
held to the same standards
that any other business is.
As an organization, we
work to ensure Haitian Americans
in New York have all
the tools they need to succeed
and develop, but the first step
is ensuring they’re safe. We
believe vulnerable populations
throughout the city should be
the ones who decide what personal
information is shared
broadly and freely. City Council’s
latest bill takes that power
away from them.
New Yorkers should write
their Council Members today
and urge them to slow down:
understand the real-world
implications of this bill. The
safety and respect of many
New Yorkers depend on it.
Sam Pierre is the Executive
Director of the Haitian American
Caucus.
By Patrick Foye
With my time as MTA Chair
and CEO coming to a close, I
want to take the opportunity in
this final column to thank you,
our valued customers, for trusting
us and riding with us over
the last four years. It has been an
honor to lead this critical agency
— one that affects the daily lives
of millions of New Yorkers.
Transit is not only the circulatory
system of this region
fueling its economic engine, but
also a great equalizer, helping
to improve equity and access by
connecting our customers to job
and educational opportunities,
social and cultural activities,
health care and more.
As the region’s recovery continues
and I move on to lead
the Empire State Development
Corporation, I know the MTA
will continue to be there for New
Yorkers, as it has always been.
There will be new leadership, but
the mission remains the same.
Simply put, our customers and
dedicated workers are the lifeblood
of our system and our primary
focus, as they have been for
117 years.
The importance of transit has
only been heightened by the pandemic.
I am proud to have led the
MTA at a time when New Yorkers
needed safe and reliable public
transportation more than ever.
In the darkest days of COVID,
the MTA carried doctors, nurses,
police officers, firefighters,
sanitation workers, grocery and
delivery workers, our own transit
heroes, and so many more so
they could show up to perform
their essential duties and pull
us through this unprecedented
crisis.
The dedicated men and
women at every level of the MTA,
from our heroic workers on the
front lines and smart and tireless
staff at agency offices to our partners
in labor, are the definition of
public servants. They’ve shown
the nation and the world what
it means to be New York Tough,
and I am humbled by their hard
work and determination.
It’s thanks to them that we
faced the greatest challenge in
MTA history and came out rising
to recovery on the other side.
The same goes for the brave men
and women of the MTAPD and
NYPD’s Transit Bureau.
It was a tremendously moving
capstone to my tenure to
celebrate these colleagues at the
Hometown Heroes ticker tape
parade earlier this month. Riding
the vintage 1903 wooden
train up the Canyon of Heroes
was a poignant moment that I
will always cherish. It brought
to mind the service and sacrifice
shown by all, but especially by
the 168 members of the MTA
family lost to COVID. I will never
forget them.
Now you can do your part by
coming back to the system — a
system that is safe, affordable,
and open 24/7 to get you where
you need to go. We’ve seen ridership
begin to rise significantly
and expect to make further gains
in September as businesses bring
back more employees, tourists
return as Broadway fully reopens
and students come back to inperson
classes.
So again, a sincere thank you.
This isn’t really goodbye — I’ll
still be out there riding the rails
as a commuter as I’ve done for
years – but it is the start of a new
chapter. I look forward to seeing
you in transit.
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Council’s data bill will harm
vulnerable New Yorkers
A farewell message from the
outgoing MTA chair & CEO
A delivery person for Doordash rides his bike in the
rain in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New
York, U.S., Nov. 13, 2020. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/File
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