Key Card at Peter Cooper Village

Peter Cooper Village's tenants will no longer use a key, but a card bearing their photograph to open the door to their apartment. Here is the New York Supreme Court decision.

Tenants sued their landlord because they did not want to be forced using these cards. The decision shows the classical tension between privacy issues and security issues: some tenants are concerned that their privacy will be tramped, and that they may be at risk for identity theft.

" One of the tenants' core concerns with the card key system relates to the embossing of a tenants photograph on the card key which, combined with the data in Met Life's possession gathered under the new system, allegedly creates an unacceptable risk of identity theft or criminal conduct by Met Life employees or others. DHCR, however, specifically accepted Met Life experts' opinions that the photograph on the card keys are a crucial security measure and a critical component to the system, and properly rejected the tenants expert's alleged risks as speculative (...)"

It would be interesting to know what Met Life plans to do internally in order to protect the tenants' data. Security breach is rampant these days, and may be just one laptop's theft away.

Security is the trade-off:

"The New York City Police Department [recommended] the card key system (...) Maximizing the use of updated electronic technology, access control cards contribute to a safer environment by limiting the number of persons at a given location, allowing only authorized entry. Access control cards equipped with photo identification capability increases the level of security, allowing immediate, positive verification of the card holder. A database record of access cards allows the issuer the ability to void a card in the event it is reported lost or stolen. This feature allows for the integrity of the entire system to be maintained."

What exactly will this database contain? Will data be purged regularly, or kept there indefinitely? It is particularly concerning since every visitors will need to showe their credentials: a New York Times article mentions that visitors will also need to have their pictures taken to visit their friends living in Peter Cooper Village.