NYC Club Stored Patron Info

A lawsuit filed by a New York City nightclub owner has unveiled a secret police operation that’s raised some eyebrows over privacy concerns.

The company that runs the nightclub Greenhouse and its basement lounge, W.i.P., filed suit against the city June 25 alleging it’s lost $264,000 per week since it was closed over code violations.

The violations stemmed from a recent brawl between Chris Brown, Drake and their entourages, but that incident wasn’t the first the club has been cited for.

Greenhouse was apparently on the verge of being shuttered last year and opted to enter into an agreement with the NYPD. The deal saw the personal information of thousands of clubgoers – names, addresses and photos – scanned and stored to a database for police, the New York Daily News reported.

New York civil liberties advocate Donna Lieberman objected to the practice.

“Whenever the police department is gathering information about individuals who have done nothing wrong it raises privacy concerns,” she told the paper. “The club should be notifying customers that you’re under the watchful eye of the NYPD when you submit your ID and enter the club.”

The agreement reportedly kept clubgoers’ information on file for up to a month.

The NYPD declined to state if the information from the venue database was ever accessed, the News said.