Tens of thousands of revelers have had their personal information scanned and then stored for possible review by police after passing through the velvet ropes of a pair of exclusive SoHo clubs. Click below to find out more.
Owners of the now-shuttered W.i.P. and Greenhouse clubs — after a series of safety and alcohol violations — entered a strict arrangement with the NYPD in March 2011, the Daily News has learned.
Among other stipulations, the 14-page agreement required the clubs to provide names, addresses and ID photos of everyone who came inside. The information is generally scanned from identifications and stored in a database or handwritten in log books.
Civil libertarians were outraged that the NYPD’s civil enforcement unit had access to clubgoers’ private information — especially in the absence of a crime.
“Whenever the Police Department is gathering information about individuals who have done nothing wrong it raises privacy concerns,†said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Even more troubling, patrons aren’t warned ahead of time that their personal information is being collected.
Yeah where’s that billionaires daughter who was talking all that shhhhh on how WiP was all this and that??