AI-Assisted Resident Outreach List Generation for Social Services

What it is for

Eligibility & Public Benefits

PEU uses Statara-generated outreach lists to contact New York City residents who may be eligible for programs such as Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE) and other social services, particularly when existing agency data is unavailable or insufficient.

NYC AI Register — Statara

Run by: Department of Social Services (DSS)
Where: No fixed location
Kept: Retained Updated monthly; prior file retention period not specified
Shared with: Accountable organization
Your copy: You cannot see the data it holds about you. What you can do

What it is for

Eligibility & Public Benefits

This system uses a commercially purchased dataset and algorithmic scoring to identify New York City residents who may be eligible for social services programs, then generates contact lists used by city staff to conduct outreach. The vendor, Statara, matches multiple data sources to produce demographic, contact, and likelihood-score information about individuals. City staff use these lists to reach people when existing agency data is unavailable or insufficient — for example, to find seniors potentially eligible for a rent exemption program.

What it collects and what happens to it

Data taken in

Sensitive personal information

Identifiable data

Statara's proprietary input data includes multiple commercial datasets matched to determine residency, contact information, and demographics of individual NYC residents. The specific upstream sources are not disclosed; the vendor receives no DSS/PEU client data as input.

NYC AI Register — Statara

Processing

Classification & Prediction

Statara's core processing uses algorithmic matching across multiple commercial datasets to resolve identity, residency, and contact information, and then applies scoring models to estimate likelihood of demographic characteristics (e.g., likelihood a household contains children under 18, likelihood a resident is a non-homeowning senior).

NYC AI Register — Statara

What it does

Deciding (Analytical AI)

Human decides

Statara's algorithm scores and ranks NYC residents by likelihood of meeting program eligibility criteria (e.g., likelihood of being a senior renter). PEU staff review and subset these scored lists to decide which individuals to contact — no automated action is taken against an individual without human review.

NYC AI Register — Statara

Outputs

Sensitive personal information

Identifiable data

PEU receives a regularly updated data file from Statara containing identifiable information on NYC residents: addresses, phone numbers, demographic attributes, and algorithmically derived likelihood scores. PEU subsets and merges this file with other agency data to create targeted outreach lists.

NYC AI Register — Statara

A recommendation or prediction

Identifiable data

Statara produces algorithmically determined likelihood scores (e.g., likelihood of being a senior renter, likelihood a household contains children under 18) which function as advisory predictions that PEU staff use to prioritize and filter outreach populations.

NYC AI Register — Statara

Run by

Department of Social Services (DSS)

The Mayor's Public Engagement Unit (PEU) within DSS deploys Statara data to build outreach lists targeting New York City residents for social services programs. PEU accesses the vendor-supplied data file and merges it with other agency data sources to conduct outreach projects.

NYC AI Register — Statara

Built by

Statara

Statara is a commercial data provider that builds and operates proprietary algorithmic matching processes to produce a dataset of NYC residents including demographic, contact, and likelihood-score information. The vendor provides a regularly updated data file to DSS/PEU under a procurement arrangement.

NYC AI Register — Statara

Kept for

Retained Updated monthly; prior file retention period not specified

Statara provides a regularly updated data file on a monthly basis. The register does not specify how long PEU retains each version of the file or the outreach lists derived from it.
Duration: Updated monthly; prior file retention period not specified

NYC AI Register — Statara

Shared with

Available to the accountable organization

PEU accesses a regularly updated Statara data file containing identifiable resident information. PEU subsets and merges this file with other agency data for use in outreach projects.

NYC AI Register — Statara

Not available to me

Individual NYC residents have no access to the Statara data file or to information about whether they are included in outreach lists, what scores have been assigned to them, or what demographic attributes have been inferred. No self-service access mechanism is described.

NYC AI Register — Statara

Stored

Not stated by the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation.

How to read the colours

Can it identify you?

Anonymized data: Data about people with the link to who is broken. Stripped of identifiers, blurred, aggregated, or noised so this system can’t reasonably tie a record back to an individual.
Pseudonymous data: Each person’s data is tied to a token (hash, ID, template) that lets this system recognise the same person across events, but the token itself doesn’t reveal a name. Reidentification is possible with extra information.
Identifiable data: The data either contains a direct identifier (name, address, account name, recognisable face or voice, plate number) or carries a token this system uses to look up legal identity during processing.

Who completes the loop?

Human decides: This mode suggests; a person decides what to do next. The AI is always advisory — a human is in the loop on every decision. Example: a triage tool ranks cases for a clinician who chooses which to see first.
Human executes: This mode decides; a person carries out the result. Example: an optimizer plans the day’s trash-collection routes, and drivers run them.
Autonomous: This mode decides and acts on its own. No person reviews each decision or carries out the resulting action.

Definitions from the DTPR standard. Amber is about your data, violet about who decides. The fuller the shape and the deeper the colour, the more identifying the data or the less a person is involved.

What you can do

Ask about this system

Questions go to the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation, not the vendor.

Your rights

Right to Algorithmic TransparencyNYC residents whose information appears in Statara-derived outreach lists are not individually notified of their inclusion. The system's existence is disclosed through the NYC AI use-case register. Because Statara's algorithmic processes are proprietary, neither the public nor the city has full visibility into the matching logic or scoring models used.

Risks and safeguards

Reputational harmStatara's algorithmic matching and likelihood scoring could misidentify individuals or infer incorrect demographic attributes (e.g., wrongly classifying someone as a senior renter), leading to irrelevant outreach or, if scores were used more consequentially, stigmatizing misclassification.Safeguard: The system is used only for informative outreach (not binding decisions); PEU staff review and subset lists before use; no DSS/PEU client data is fed back to the vendor. The register notes that only the vendor's proprietary processes govern input and training data, limiting city oversight of model accuracy.
Loss of autonomyResidents included in Statara-derived outreach lists have no knowledge of or control over their inclusion, and cannot correct inaccurate scores or demographic inferences.Safeguard: Outreach is non-coercive (informational contact only); the system is not used to deny services. However, no opt-out mechanism or individual notification is described in the register, and individuals have no apparent means to review or contest their inclusion in these lists.