Dozens of advocates rallied outside City Hall on Tuesday to demand the city ban surveillance technology they claim negatively impacts Black and brown communities.

Advocates joined at City Hall to call for an end to the practice of public surveillance, starting with a ban on facial recognition.

Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani said he recalled when his community was under surveillance after 9/11, saying NYPD agents were in businesses and parks in Queens to monitor the Muslim community.

Members of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project want the city to end the use of surveillance drones, speech recognition, social media phishing tactics and the upcoming installment of metal detectors in the city’s transit system.

Advocates say their concerns are being heard, with Comptroller Brad Lander co-sponsoring the 2018 Post Act that aims to give the public more transparency of surveillance technologies purchased and used by the NYPD.

The NYPD provided this statement:

“The NYPD uses facial recognition as a limited investigative tool, comparing a still image from a surveillance video to a pool of lawfully possessed arrest photos. This technology helps bring justice to victims of crimes. Any facial recognition match is solely an investigative lead and not probable cause for arrest – no enforcement action is ever taken solely on the basis of a facial recognition match.”