City authorities on Tuesday unveiled three new high-tech police gadgets, including a robotic dog that critics called creepy when it first joined the police force two and a half years ago.
The new devices, which also include a GPS tracker for stolen cars and a cone-shaped security robot, will be deployed “transparently, consistently and always in close collaboration with the people we serve,” the Police Commissioner said. Keechant Sewell, who joined Mayor Eric Adams and other officials at a news conference in Times Square featuring the security robot and mechanical dog nicknamed Digidog.
“Digidog is out of the pound,” said Adams, a Democrat and former police officer. “Digidog is now part of the toolkit we’re using.”
The city’s first robot police dog was leased in 2020 by Adams’ predecessor, former mayor Bill de Blasio, but the city’s contract for the device was halted after critics derided it as creepy and dystopian.
Adams said he will not give in to pressure against the robot dog.
“A few people objected and we took a step back,” the mayor said. “I don’t work like that. I work by looking at what is best for the city.”
Adams explained that the Digidog, weighing 32 kilos and remote controlled, will be used starting this summer in risky situations, such as hostage-taking.
“If there is a entrenched suspect or someone armed inside a building, instead of sending the police, Digidog will be sent,” he explained. “These are smart ways of using good technologies.”
The tracking system dubbed StarChase will allow police to drop a GPS tag that will be attached to a stolen car so officers can track the vehicle’s location. The New York Police Department’s pilot program to use the system will last 90 days, according to authorities.
The Autonomous Security Robot, which Adams likened to a Roomba, will be deployed inside the Times Square subway station in a seven-month pilot program beginning this summer, law enforcement officials said.
The device, used in shopping malls and other locations for several years, will initially have a human partner, according to police.
Advocates for civil liberties and police reform questioned the need for these high-tech devices.
“This latest announcement is just the latest example of Mayor Adams allowing rampant overspending of the NYPD’s massively bloated budget,” said Ileana Mendez-Penate, program director for Communities United for Police Reform. “The NYPD is buying up robot dogs and other fancy technologies while New Yorkers can’t access food stamps because city agencies are understaffed, and New Yorkers are being evicted because they can’t access their right to counsel.”
Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, said: “The NYPD is turning bad science fiction into a terrible police performance. New York deserves real security, not a RoboCop knockoff.”
