A DOC spokesperson wrote in an email that the contract extension is to \u201censure that people in our care are able to maintain connections with loved ones.\u201d \u201cThe purpose of the May 8th notice,\u201d the spokesperson continued, \u201cwas to advise the public of an extension of the department\u2019s original contract with the vendor to ensure continuity of these vital avenues of outside communication and personal enhancement while the procurement and contracting process is finalized.\u201d <\/p>\n
The original Securus contract was brokered in 2014 through a competitive bidding process for phone and tablet services. It was to last five years and included five one-year extensions. The city used all of the extensions, for a total of 10 years, and it terminated it at the end of 2024. It was extended another year, and then another six months, to allow procurement processes for the new contract to complete. With the May 8 notice, the department shared that it intends to seek another six-month extension while negotiations are finalized.<\/p>\n
The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, or STOP, a New York privacy and civil rights group, on Wednesday condemned the contract\u2019s prospective renewal for its inclusion of AI to monitor inmates\u2019 phone calls, analyze conversations with automated voice-recognition technology and automatically analyze content. The organization pointed out that Brooklyn Defender Services, a nonprofit public defenders office, in its April public comment about the contract said that Securus \u2014 by using the AI call-monitoring services \u2014 expands its surveillance capabilities beyond the jail to target the friends and family of incarcerated New Yorkers.<\/p>\n
Defender Services also warned that Securus integrates with services from the controversial AI data-analytics firm Palantir, which partners with\u00a0Immigration and Customs Enforcement, potentially in violation of New York City\u2019s sanctuary city designation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe City should be shuttering Rikers, not funneling millions toward another half decade of its AI phone surveillance,\u201d\u00a0Michelle Dahl, the executive director of STOP, said in a news release. \u201cSecurus isn\u2019t just a threat to incarcerated New Yorkers, but to their friends, family, and communities. It also undermines the constitutional rights of New Yorkers being held pretrial who haven\u2019t even been convicted of a crime. This sort of technology automates racial profiling and endangers immigrant communities, flagging voices, words, and phrases based solely on algorithmic bias and leaving that data vulnerable to ICE.\u201d<\/p>\n
Securus Technologies\u2019 president, Kevin Elder, said its technology not only monitors conversations in real time, but can also predict when crimes are simply \u201cbeing thought about.\u201d \u201cWe can point that large language model at an entire treasure trove [of data],\u201d Elder said last year in an interview with\u00a0MIT Technology Review,<\/a> \u201cto detect and understand when crimes are being thought about or contemplated, so that you\u2019re catching it much earlier in the cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n Worth Rises, a nonprofit that advocates for inmates\u2019 rights, that has previously criticized Securus for its surveillance practices<\/a> and its \u201cextortionate cost<\/a>\u201d of communications, published a report<\/a> this month detailing the importance of providing inmates with free access to phone calls and other types of communication services, like video calls or emails. The report described the correctional telecom sector as a \u201c$1.5 billion\u201d industry that has \u201cprofited from preying on the human need for connection.\u201d The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, which also uses Securus, made most calls free in August<\/a> by providing each inmate with three free calls, each up to 15 minutes, per week. This has improved the conditions of facilities, according to Commissioner Daniel F. Martuscello III.<\/p>\n \u201cSince implementing the free phone call policy last August, we have seen a significant\u00a0increase\u00a0in call activity, demonstrating that when financial barriers are removed, individuals in our care make greater use of opportunities to stay connected,\u201d he said in a press release. \u201cThese strengthened connections provide critical support and contribute to reduced conflict inside facilities and improved outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\tWritten by Keely Quinlan![\"Keely](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/dY969nH0-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\tKeely Quinlan reports on privacy and digital government for StateScoop. She was an investigative news reporter with Clarksville Now in Tennessee, where she resides, and her coverage included local crimes, courts, public education and public health. Her work has appeared in Teen Vogue, Stereogum and other outlets. She earned her bachelor\u2019s in journalism and master\u2019s in social and cultural analysis from New York University.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City\u2019s Department of Correction is planning to renew a $23 million contract with the telecommunications company…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5071,262,47001,9,24,56,63,91447,65,64,5065,29549,91448],"class_list":["post-233097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","tag-city","tag-correctional-facilities","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-department-of-correction","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-state-local-news","tag-surveillance-technology","tag-surveillance-technology-oversight-project"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}