LaValley v. Concord Housing and Redevelopment Authority

Residents of housing developments owned and maintained by the Concord Housing and Redevelopment Authority (CHRA) in New Hampshire sued to block CHRA from harvesting and retaining sweeping data about tenants’ activity patterns in their homes through surveillance devices purchased from a private company, Minut Inc.

In the fall of 2024, CHRA began installing Minut Monitor devices inside people’s apartments across the properties it manages, providing government employees with real-time, remote access to granular data about activity within tenants’ homes. These devices are capable of collecting data such as the decibel level of detected noise, motion detector readings showing physical movement of residents and guests, smoke and humidity levels, and scans for iOS signals, which can estimate how many people are nearby.

Taken together, the information provided by Minut Monitors can create a mosaic of detail about peoples’ lives, revealing when they wake up, when they come and go from their home, and more. Minut Monitors near tenants’ beds can even potentially track sound and motion data that could reflect intimate acts. Much of the data is logged on a minute-by-minute basis. CHRA has amassed hundreds of millions of data points from within tenants’ apartments. The data is stored indefinitely and available to CHRA employees on demand.

The lawsuit asks the New Hampshire Superior Court to rule that the CHRA violated its tenants’ rights under the New Hampshire Constitution by installing the Minut Monitor devices and non-consensually collecting personal and private information, and seeks injunctive relief.