AI-Assisted Photo and Graphic Editing for Communications

What it is for

Inform

AI tools within Adobe Creative Suite are used to prepare and present information through social media graphics, photos, and videos produced by the department's communications team.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report

Run by: Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD)
Where: No fixed location
Kept: Not stated by the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation.
Shared with: Not stated by the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation.
Your copy: You cannot see the data it holds about you. What you can do

What it is for

Inform

The NYC Department of Youth and Community Development uses Adobe Creative Cloud's built-in AI tools to edit photos, videos, and graphics for social media and communications purposes. Staff upload source images or videos, and AI features such as generative fill and spot-removal in Photoshop help transform them into finished assets. The system is used weekly and is operated by department communications staff. Members of the public are not directly profiled; the AI assists human designers who make all final creative decisions.

What it collects and what happens to it

Data taken in

About a place

Anonymized data

Photos and videos of locations, events, and settings uploaded by communications staff for editing and transformation into social media assets.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report

Biometric

Anonymized data

Photos and videos uploaded by staff may contain people. AI tools may process visual features of people (e.g. to remove a logo from clothing), though no biometric identification is performed and no individual is targeted.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report

Processing

Computer Vision

Adobe's AI tools interpret image and video content at the pixel level — detecting objects, regions, and subjects — to enable targeted edits such as background removal, object erasure, and generative fill. No scene-level classification or crowd analysis is performed.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report

What it does

Creating (Generative AI)

Human decides

Adobe Photoshop AI features such as generative fill and object removal create or transform visual content (removing logos, editing backgrounds, generating replacement pixels). A human designer directs and approves every edit before the asset is exported.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report

Outputs

Generated content

Anonymized data

Finished designed audio, visual, and graphic assets (social media posts, edited photos, graphics) exported by the designer after AI-assisted editing. The output does not contain personal data about any individual.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report

Run by

Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD)

The Communications department within NYC's Department of Youth and Community Development deploys Adobe Creative Cloud's AI-powered editing tools to produce social media content and public communications materials.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report

Built by

Adobe

Adobe developed and maintains Adobe Creative Cloud, an off-the-shelf suite of graphic, video, and photography applications with integrated AI features. Training data for the AI tools is proprietary to Adobe.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report

Kept for

Not stated by the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation.

Shared with

Not available to me

Members of the public do not interact with this system and have no data rights to exercise against it. The tool processes staff-uploaded assets for internal communications production; no personal data about members of the public is collected, stored, or made accessible.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report

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 TransparencyThis system is disclosed in the NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Register, available at https://data.cityofnewyork.us/City-Government/Algorithmic-Tools-Compliance-Report/jaw4-yuem. Members of the public may review that register for information about how AI tools are used by city agencies.

Risks and safeguards

Reputational harmAI-generated or AI-altered images could misrepresent people or events if used without disclosure. Risk is mitigated by the human-in-the-loop workflow: a staff designer reviews and approves all outputs before publication. The system is limited to internal communications production rather than automated public-facing decisions.