The New York City Police Department (NYPD) is negotiating a $750,500 agreement with Israeli technology company Cognyte to acquire an advanced mobile phone-tracking system, despite the anti-Israel views of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
According to a report by the New York Daily News, the proposed three-year contract would provide the NYPD with FalcoNet, a surveillance system designed to help investigators locate suspects by identifying and tracking nearby cellular devices.
The agreement, which would be awarded directly to Cognyte without competitive bidding, is currently undergoing a public review process and has not yet received final approval.
FalcoNet operates by simulating a cellular communications tower, prompting nearby mobile phones to connect to the device. The system can then identify individual phones and assist law enforcement personnel in determining their approximate locations.
The equipment can be installed in police vehicles, attached to drones, or carried in a backpack. According to the report, the NYPD intends to deploy the technology primarily through its police vehicles.
Cognyte's technology incorporates artificial intelligence, although the precise functions performed by AI within FalcoNet have not been publicly detailed.
The NYPD already employs similar cellular tracking systems to locate criminal suspects and assist in searches for missing individuals or people at risk of suicide. Police officials maintain that FalcoNet offers capabilities better suited to the department's operational requirements than competing systems.
“The department explored different cell-site simulators and determined that this device best met the needs of the NYPD," a police spokesperson told the New York Daily News.
The proposed acquisition has prompted objections from civil liberties organizations, which warn that the technology could collect identifying information from phones belonging to individuals who are not subjects of police investigations.
Daniel Schwarz, senior privacy and technology strategist at the New York Civil Liberties Union, told the Daily News that the agreement raises concerns about surveillance practices and the protection of residents' personal information.
“Cell-site simulators require warrants because they are highly intrusive, dragnet surveillance," Schwarz said. “And this new tech goes even further by incorporating undisclosed AI capabilities that analyze people’s behaviors."
Police officials emphasized that the technology would operate under existing departmental restrictions, including a requirement to obtain judicial warrants for most criminal investigations.
Emergency circumstances, including situations involving an immediate threat to life, may allow officers to deploy cellular tracking equipment before obtaining a warrant, subject to departmental procedures.
The NYPD also said that FalcoNet would not be used to monitor telephone conversations or collect text messages from devices unrelated to investigations, and that information obtained through the system would not be shared with other agencies.
Access to the technology would be limited to four authorized members of the department's Technical Assistance Response Unit, operating through computers connected to an isolated network.
Civil liberties advocates have questioned whether existing oversight mechanisms are sufficient to ensure compliance with those restrictions, particularly because the department does not publicly disclose individual deployments of its cellular tracking equipment.
The proposed agreement remains under consideration as New York City officials review public comments before determining whether to authorize the purchase.
“We are reviewing the proposed contract," a City Hall spokesperson told the Daily News.
Cognyte did not respond to the newspaper's requests for comment.