Updated

Updated · The New York Times · Sep 2

Concord Housing Installs 300 Minut Sensors as Tenants Protest In-Home Noise and Motion Monitoring

Updated

Updated · The New York Times · Sep 2

Concord Housing Installs 300 Minut Sensors as Tenants Protest In-Home Noise and Motion Monitoring

Q: Could a device meant to stop smoking secretly be mapping your family's daily routines?

Yes. A camera-free device can still build a detailed picture of household routines. In Concord, the Minut sensors installed in roughly 300 public housing apartments do not record video or save conversations. But they do measure decibel levels, air quality, motion, and Bluetooth signals from nearby phones and other devices. Taken together, those signals can show when people are home, when the apartment is quiet or active, whether extra guests may be present, and whether air conditions changed in ways consistent with smoking or vaping. That does not mean the system produces a perfect minute-by-minute log of family life. Minut says its noise feature is trigger-based, typically alerting only when sound stays above a set threshold, such as 75 decibels for 10 minutes, and that it does not store audio. Even so, privacy experts say repeated time-stamped alerts and occupancy-related signals can reveal patterns over time, including wake and sleep routines, work schedules, gatherings, and periods when a unit is empty. That is why residents and scholars such as University of Massachusetts law professor Lisa Owens argue the issue is not just cameras or microphones. It is whether environmental and device-presence data inside a home can be used to infer behavior. In public housing, where smoking bans must be enforced under HUD rules and authorities want evidence beyond neighbor complaints, that capability is exactly what makes the technology attractive to managers and unsettling to tenants.

1 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Sep 2

Around 300 affordable-housing apartments in Concord, New Hampshire, now have Minut sensors, prompting residents to object that the housing authority is monitoring them inside their homes.
The authority began installing the devices in 2024 to enforce bans on smoking and excessive noise, replacing neighbor complaints with sensors that cost $50 upfront and $7.50 a month to monitor.
Posted notices said the devices are camera-free and do not record sound, but residents found they track decibel levels, air quality, Bluetooth signals from phones and motion.
Lisa Owens, a University of Massachusetts law professor who studies surveillance in public housing, said such smart-device use has grown since HUD banned smoking and can create both unease and real privacy risks.