Tisch’s NYPD drops no-bid phone-tracker deal with Meta-banned Israeli firm after progressive backlash

The department will reopen the $750,000 contract for FalcoNet, an AI-driven cellphone tracker from Cognyte, to competitive bids, and Cognyte can still bid, the Daily News reported. Meta said in 2021 it removed about 100 accounts linked to the firm, whose customers targeted journalists and politicians.

Tisch’s NYPD drops no-bid phone-tracker deal with Meta-banned Israeli firm after progressive backlash
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch at an MTA security announcement, Oct. 9, 2025 (file photo). Inset: Meta's December 2021 report on the surveillance-for-hire industry.

The New York Police Department is backing away from a $750,000 no-bid contract with Cognyte, an Israeli surveillance company, for an AI-driven cellphone tracking system called FalcoNet, after Mayor Zohran Mamdani faced criticism from progressive city lawmakers over the deal, the New York Daily News reported Tuesday, October 27.

The department confirmed it is restarting the procurement as an open, competitive process and accepting competing bids, the Daily News reported. An NYPD spokesperson told the paper that the contract “did not meet the criteria for a sole source procurement, so we are moving to an open, competitive procurement process,” and said Cognyte could still submit a bid.

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Featured image: Photo: Metropolitan Transportation Authority via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0. Document: Meta, 'Threat Report on the Surveillance-for-Hire Industry' (Dec. 2021). Composite by Bushwick Daily

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