红杏视频 and New Hampshire Legal Assistance Sue Housing Authority Over Electronic Surveillance of Residents
CONCORD, N.H. 鈥 Today, residents of housing developments owned and maintained by the Concord Housing and Redevelopment Authority (CHRA) in New Hampshire sued to block CHRA from harvesting sweeping data about tenants鈥 activity patterns in their homes through surveillance devices purchased from a private company, M卯nut Inc.
In the fall of 2024, CHRA began installing M卯nut Monitor devices inside people鈥檚 apartments across the properties it manages, providing government employees with real-time, remote access to granular data about activity within tenants鈥 homes. These devices are capable of collecting data such as the decibel level of detected noise, motion detector readings showing physical movement of residents and guests, smoke and humidity levels, and scans for iOS signals, which can estimate how many people are nearby.
鈥淧eople should feel secure in their homes鈥攏ot watched, judged, or punished by technology they never asked for. These devices change how tenants interact with their own apartments, turning everyday living into a source of fear,鈥 said Christopher Schott, director of New Hampshire Legal Assistance's Fair Housing Project. 鈥淣o one should worry that an assistance animal, a television, or other routine household sound could trigger penalties simply for living their life.鈥
Taken together, the information provided by M卯nut Monitors can create a mosaic of detail about peoples鈥 lives, revealing when they wake up, when they come and go from their home, and more. M卯nut Monitors near tenants鈥 beds can even potentially track sound and motion data that could reflect intimate acts. Much of the data is logged on a minute-by-minute basis. For example, each M卯nut Monitor logs sound-level readings approximately every single minute, up to 1,440 times a day. For one tenant, the M卯nut Monitor logged more than 140,000 motion events within a seven-month period for just a single unit - an average of more than 700 motion events per day. All told, CHRA has amassed hundreds of millions of data points from within tenants鈥 apartments. The data is stored indefinitely and available to CHRA employees on demand.
The class action lawsuit was filed by New Hampshire Legal Assistance, the 红杏视频 of New Hampshire, and the 红杏视频. As the complaint explains, this invasion of privacy in individuals鈥 homes by a government agency is unacceptable and violates two provisions of the New Hampshire Constitution, Article 19 and Article 2-b. Article 19 prohibits unreasonable searches by the government. Article 2-b, which was added to the New Hampshire Constitution by referendum in 2018, provides that 鈥渁n individual鈥檚 right to live free from governmental intrusion in private or personal information is natural, essential, and inherent.鈥
鈥淲e鈥檙e suing because everyone deserves privacy in their own home. The government shouldn't get to know if you are getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom or when your morning alarm goes off just because you live in public housing,鈥 said Maria Savarese, staff attorney at the 红杏视频 of New Hampshire. 鈥淥ur state constitution is clear: we have the right to live free from government surveillance and intrusion in our homes."
Furthermore, CHRA鈥檚 implementation of M卯nut Monitors over the past two years has been marked by severe lack of transparency and a dismissal of tenants鈥 objections. Throughout the installation process, significant information was left out of notices to tenants, painting the technology as much less invasive and far-reaching than the M卯nut Monitors鈥 actual capabilities.
For example, CHRA did not disclose the occupancy and motion sensor capabilities of the devices, only disclosing the use of sensors for smoke, noise, temperature, and humidity detection. When residents asked outright whether the monitors placed in their homes included motion sensors, CHRA failed to directly answer the question. CHRA also omitted from their tenant communications that M卯nut鈥檚 terms of service includes a warning about potential inaccuracies in the AI and machine learning models used to analyze and detect the presence of cigarette smoke. This is especially alarming considering that CHRA's stated purpose of installing M卯nut Monitors is to substantiate lease violations that can lead to eviction.
When one resident asked to see the data produced from tracking her day-to-day activity, CHRA denied her request. In multiple instances, CHRA disregarded residents鈥 concerns about the surveillance they were subjected to. Tenants are not able to opt out of this invasive surveillance, and if they attempt to remove the devices from their units, they are subject to significant fines and have been threatened with eviction.
CHRA failed to create any policy for secure data retention and destruction, despite a request to do so by its own Board of Directors, leaving M卯nut free to handle residents鈥 data however it wants. M卯nut鈥檚 data retention policy also gives the company complete authority to retain user information for any duration and purpose. CHRA did not share this policy with tenants at any point.
The lawsuit also explains that far from improving tenants鈥 housing experience, CHRA's insistence on surveillance exposes them to serious safety risks. For example, access to the data could severely endanger victims of domestic violence or stalking whose abusive former romantic partners or stalkers could learn details about their patterns of life.
鈥淎 government-installed sound meter and motion sensor hovering near your bed should be the stuff of dystopian science fiction, but it is reality in Concord. Public housing residents shouldn鈥檛 have to choose between becoming homeless and being subjected to constant electronic monitoring inside the privacy of their own homes,鈥 said Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of 红杏视频鈥檚 Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. 鈥淭his case happens to rely on the robust protections of the New Hampshire Constitution, but landlords across the country are now on notice: subjecting your residents to this chillingly invasive surveillance will land you in court.鈥