What if politicians were pushing to access your most personal information — documents like your hospital bill, your child’s school transcript, or your bank account statements? What if they asked that these sensitive records be publicly released for everyone to see?
This is exactly what Staten Island Assembly Members Nicole Malliotakis and Ron Castorina are trying to accomplish with a frivolous lawsuit against “IDNYC”, the City’s free municipal ID card.
Two years after its launch, IDNYC has provided nearly a million New Yorkers — especially veterans, young people, LGBTQ, and immigrants — with a government identification to access their city institutions and services.
In close partnership with the New York Police Department, a rigorous verification process is in place to confirm the identity and residency of each individual applicant. There have been virtually no instances of fraud.
Despite this record, however, Staten Island Republicans are demanding that the city of New York expose to the public domain “all scanned application materials associated with IDNYC.”
Through an erroneous interpretation of New York law, these politicians are essentially demanding copies of applications, passports, marriage certificates, medical records, pay stubs and other sensitive information that applicants submitted to prove their identity and residency for the identification card.
It’s clear that Malliotakis and Castorina either fail to understand how the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) works, or are attempting to misuse it. FOIL was designed to ensure that important government records of public significance are accessible, but the law exempted highly personal records that “if disclosed would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
Considering the highly personal, sensitive nature of the documents requested, this seems to have less to do with security, and more to do with pushing against our neighbors who obtained this ID.
Similar lawsuits to access applicant data have failed. In 2008, anti-immigration activists in New Haven, Connecticut filed a Freedom of Information request seeking the names, addresses and photos of card holders. State authorities rejected the request, citing privacy and safety concerns.
It is a fundamental principle of our state and federal constitution granting each New Yorker a right to privacy that extends to safeguarding our personal information, regardless of whether it’s in a file cabinet or a hard drive.
Written into the 2014 law authorizing the IDNYC program was a requirement that the city review its data retention policies after two years. Specifically, the city was required to review whether to retain “originals or copies of records provided by an applicant to prove identity or residency for a New York city identity card.”
The city made a sensible judgment that it no longer needed to retain these copies of personal documents presented by applicants. In an era of heightened anxiety over data security at all levels of government, it’s prudent for our city to maintain only those records which are absolutely necessary for the administration of its programs and services.
Malliotakis and Castorina’s frivolous lawsuit is an assault on our liberties, a waste of tax-payer money and a transparent attempt to ride anti-immigrant sentiment: the law suit needs to be dropped immediately.