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Residents at a Hell’s Kitchen apartment complex are suing their landlord over an app that controls their movement in and out of their building.
The owners of the building at 517-525 West 45th Street installed a new electronic security system called Latch last year, replacing tenants’ keys to the building lobby with a smartphone app, according to the New York Post. The app is currently in use in more than 1,000 residential buildings in the city. At the Hell’s Kitchen address, entrance to the lobby is required to use the elevator and access mail.
Some of the older tenants claim they’re prisoners in their own homes because they need to use the elevator to get in and out but they can’t operate a smartphone. Furthermore, tenants say the app also comes with an 84-page contract allowing the building’s owners to monitor their movements through GPS and even track their activity on social media. They allege the new system is part of a larger effort on the part of the owners to convert rent-regulated units into market-rate ones.
“It’s a form of harassment,” Mary Beth McKenzie, one of the tenants behind the lawsuit, told the Post. “What happens if your phone dies? I don’t want to be stuck on the street and I don’t want to be surveilled.”
The owner is a LLC linked to Offir Naim and Shai Bernstein. In court records, they said the impetus for introducing the high-tech system to the building was a buglary last summer. They also noted tenant could opt out of the GPS monitoring. [NYP] — Kevin Sun
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