[HN Gopher] Flock Safety is the biggest player in a city-by-city...
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Flock Safety is the biggest player in a city-by-city scramble for
surveillance
Author : apwheele
Score : 96 points
Date : 2024-05-01 13:08 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newsobserver.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newsobserver.com)
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| This is an ever expanding privacy concern. It's tough to locate
| all of the cameras, but I would be interested in a routing system
| built in OpenStreetMap which would avoid road segments containing
| the cameras.
| kotaKat wrote:
| Private businesses are starting to get them, too. Lowes has
| been deploying them over the past year or so as part of loss
| prevention upgrades apparently, so they're feeding the Flock,
| so to say.
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| I noticed one outside of my local Lowes a couple weeks ago.
| My city has deployed a number of them, including one less
| than a mile from my house.
|
| It's one thing for a business to install security cameras to
| locally monitor their premises, but the low cost and scale
| this is being deployed at is terrifying.
| kotaKat wrote:
| The best part is they're willing to grift people to shill
| it to their local homeowners association to deploy them
| _privately!_ for a whole $50.
|
| https://www.flocksafety.com/refer-hoa-board
| heroprotagonist wrote:
| You literally couldn't go anywhere, at this point. At least,
| not very far. A mile or two maybe, in a rural area?
|
| A decade ago, maybe you could avoid being tracked if you took
| only back roads in the country and avoided towns and cities.
| But now every house you pass with some private security system
| or vendor in it (in addition to all of the other sources, plus
| those set up on roadways) is reporting back to someone, and
| they're selling either the raw video or the processed data.
|
| Lots of people reading this probably subscribe to such a system
| and don't even know that they're contributing through whatever
| private system they or the property they reside in are using,
| because it's buried and obscured under ridiculously vague terms
| about third-party data sharing vendors.
|
| This article has done the disservice of making it seem like a
| single company expanding over a few years in an otherwise empty
| market. But it's not an empty market, it's just a new player
| gaining share as commodity-level tech matures.
| delduca wrote:
| About 33 years ago, the band Death was already discussing the end
| of privacy in their song '1000 Eyes'.
|
| https://oldtimemusic.com/the-meaning-behind-the-song-1000-ey...
| n4r9 wrote:
| It looks like the 1920s sci fi novel "We" by Yevgeny Zamyatin
| is one of the earliest explorations of mass surveillance:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)
| jesprenj wrote:
| Access Denied You don't have permission to access
| "http://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/articl..."
| on this server. Reference #18.7517655f.1714571129.4034487
|
| https://errors.edgesuite.net/18.7517655f.1714571129.4034487
| heroprotagonist wrote:
| I don't disagree that it's bad, but this article seems to give
| the impression that this is new. TLO (owned by TransUnion since
| 2014) has been selling this stuff since the 2000s.
|
| Basically, assume any parking lot or other surveillance camera
| you come across is reporting back either the raw data itself or
| the processed data, like which license plate has been seen. Even
| the tiny mom-and-pop's, through some deal with either their (or
| whoever they lease property from's) surveillance or software
| provider.
|
| And it's regularly been abused by bad actors among debt
| collectors, private investigators, police, and background check
| companies selling their access. Like to amateur rap crews from
| North Carolina, in this example:
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/10/12/how-a...
|
| So.. yeah, call attention to the practice and the fact it's
| expanding, that more and more companies are gaining and selling
| the data. But it minimizes the scope and scale of the problem to
| focus on one relatively new company's actions over the course of
| a few years.
| chzblck wrote:
| Whats the issue? police using for nefarious deeds that they get
| caught and fired for like in the article? or is it people think
| that privacy is a right but then have 10+ apps on their phone
| that track every movement they make?
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| People don't "think" that privacy is a right, it quite
| _literally_ is a right thanks to the Supreme Court back in
| 1965. Plus, I downloaded those apps on my own accord. You act
| like we have a choice when it comes to stuff like this.
| pessimizer wrote:
| This is a novel argument. Now it's not: "If you don't want to
| be tracked, don't have 10+ apps on your phone that will track
| you." It's become: "Well, you probably have 10+ apps on your
| phone that track you, why would you care about any other
| violation of your personal space or privacy?"
|
| The pretense of volition has been completely removed. You will
| not be allowed to participate in the modern world unless you
| give up some of your privacy; and if you give up some of your
| privacy in order to participate in the modern world, you aren't
| allowed to complain about giving up the rest of your privacy
| for any reason at all. If you _really_ cared about privacy, you
| 'd stop working, stop living in a building, stop paying taxes,
| stop living in a city, stop driving, stop walking down the
| sidewalk, keep your face covered, keep your mouth shut, and die
| in a ditch.
| bobsmith432 wrote:
| Why is this legal? Who allows this? What do we do?
| kibwen wrote:
| Regulation to protect privacy is the only solution. Otherwise,
| the market will only accelerate the exploitation of your
| personal data in the pursuit of maximum profit.
| tevon wrote:
| How is your license plate on public land your personal data?
| digging wrote:
| Sure your license plate number is public, but selling the
| geolocation history of said license plate may cross a legal
| boundary. (Or it may not, but it certainly should.)
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Recording people in public spaces is generally legal. Should it
| be unlawful to record your front porch? That'd implicate Ring
| and a whole bunch of other products. How about setting up a
| camera on your windowsill pointing out towards the street?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| That's what laws are for, for us to decide if actions that
| are technically possible should be legally possible. Many
| products exist because of leaks in existing laws around
| privacy; maybe we tighten those laws up? That's the point of
| the discussion. In this case, a private company is creating a
| dystopian dragnet of personal travel information that is a
| function of the population travel volume that its devices
| cover.
|
| If the right to privacy arrived at from this discussion kills
| a product line or a business, oh well. Human rights >
| profits, broadly speaking.
|
| "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."
| pessimizer wrote:
| None of this stuff is settled. It's always in court, and
| audio and video are frequently treated completely differently
| from each other.
|
| What about setting up a camera on your roof aimed at your
| neighbor's bedroom window, and livestreaming it online? What
| about secretly recording the conversation that you're having
| with someone in a restaurant? What about recording the
| comings and goings of the people who enter or leave a gay
| bar, or a mosque?
| jorvi wrote:
| That last one is illegal, it just isn't enforced by the
| police because they benefit from it.
|
| It's the difference between recording and monitoring. You're
| allowed to record in a public space, but you're not allowed
| to monitor it.
| infecto wrote:
| Is this not highly dependent on your location? In the US
| this is up to the state/county level. It is generally not
| illegal to film past your property line.
| jorvi wrote:
| > It is generally not illegal to film past your property
| line.
|
| In the US. In much of the world it is.
|
| But again, enforcement of this is terribly weak. It is
| virtually impossible to verify, and even if the
| government somehow did, it is trivial to circumvent as
| you just have to tilt the camera a few degrees or
| slightly change the block-out zones on the camera, and
| you can't really see the difference from the outside. On
| top of the police having a vested interest in the
| breaking of this rule because it helps them tremendously
| during investigations.
| infecto wrote:
| But the article is about the US. So your original
| statement is not quite accurate?
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Yeah, it should probably be generally illegal to record past
| your property line.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| So a ring camera recording the sidewalk in front of your
| house should be illegal?
| tkems wrote:
| One issue I have with the Flock cameras installed in my city
| is that they are installed on public land (right next to the
| road) and paid for with tax dollars.
| Teever wrote:
| People are going to start making spray paint/foam
| attachments for drones so that they can equip their drone
| with a little can of 'fuck that camera right up'
|
| it won't be cost effective to repair the cameras, so
| they'll go away.
| geodel wrote:
| Yeah, people have always fucked with technology and in
| each case people win and technology gets abandoned.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| The way government pricing usually goes, going private is
| likely saving 90% over what it would cost to implement this
| by some government agency.
|
| The million (almost 2 million) dollar toilet comes to mind.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/us/san-francisco-
| toilet.h...
| RyanHamilton wrote:
| "going private is likely saving 90% over". How's that
| working out for your private US healthcare system? Some
| of the most expensive private care in the world. The
| toilet you mention is in one of the richest most
| capitilistic states in the world, they have super
| expensive public toilets alongside homelessness. In other
| countries they have cheap public toilets. I'm not sure
| public/private is the deciding factor. I think it's San
| Francisco.
| renewiltord wrote:
| My biggest problem with the road itself is that it's
| installed on public land and paid for with tax dollars.
| geodel wrote:
| Agree.
|
| Its even worse in some places. I see schools, colleges,
| libraries are getting installed on public land. I mean
| where are we gonna end up with this.
| signatoremo wrote:
| It's used by the governments, how can they pay for it if
| not with tax money? Would you be happier if Flock
| installed them for free in exchange for advertising space
| in town?
| mindslight wrote:
| You're asking the right questions. Welcome to developing an
| awareness of the sprawling surveillance industry!
|
| In short there are vanishingly few privacy laws in the US, and
| the few that do exist are mostly undermined by fake consent in
| EULA/TOS documents-that-nobody-reads. Even when a company
| somehow does manage to run aground of some law, they generally
| just end up with financial slap on the wrist while keeping
| their ill gotten data gains.
|
| The best time to push for meaningful privacy legislation was
| over the past 40 years when all of these surveillance databases
| were being built out. But the second best time is now,
| especially as more people gain awareness of how pervasive and
| invasive this totalitarian industry has become. The records
| being created and kept by this industry would make a dyed in
| the wool Stasi agent blush, and Americans need to start
| rejecting this fallacious narrative that things that are
| reasonable for individuals to do at a small bespoke passing
| scale remain legitimate when scaled up to industrial levels.
| Teever wrote:
| If it's legal do it back to them.
|
| Any time someone is doing something to you that you don't like
| and it's legal just do it back to them twice as much, and
| publically.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
|
| Are a very useful combination.
| rbranson wrote:
| https://archive.is/XRoZ1
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://www.muckrock.com/foi/list/?page=1&per_page=100&q=flo...
| ("Muckrock: Flock Safety FOIA Requests")
|
| Feel free to spin up a FOIA request for your local jurisdiction
| using previous requests as a template.
| Giorgi wrote:
| I am surprised police dep actually paid for that, where I live,
| they would just show up and take any kind of access for free.
| JLCarveth wrote:
| Is there an issue with the title? I don't see what Claude has to
| do with this article...
| alxjsn wrote:
| Why is the title "Claude Team plan and iOS app"? Did this
| submission get renamed incorrectly?
| krunck wrote:
| Government uses private entities to get around the constitution.
| Private entities use the government to get around regulation.
| Same as it ever was.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I'm curious what constitutional provision you think is being
| violated. I get the ick factor, but as a lawyer I'm not sure
| what you're getting at.
| voakbasda wrote:
| Illegal search and seizure?
| infecto wrote:
| In most jurisdictions is there a notion of privacy while in
| public spaces? Since the article is about the US and NC I
| am referring to US only.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| There is a notion that the government has to justify
| their intrusions on the privacy of the public as we are a
| government "of the people, by the people, for the
| people".
|
| Setting up security camera at a public park to
| investigate crimes: OK
|
| Setting up security camera at a public park to track
| citizens through facial recognition: Not OK
| infecto wrote:
| Back to my point, I don't believe these cameras are
| illegal in the majority of jurisdictions.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| The legality issue is really about warrantless searches
| and not the ability of a private company to lease public
| utility poles to place cameras.
|
| It is clearly legal for a company to willingly share data
| with law enforcement, a restriction on that would be a
| First Amendment violation. It is clearly legal for the
| government to compel a company to provide data as means
| of investigating crimes "upon probable cause, supported
| by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the
| place to be searched, and the persons or things to be
| seized."
|
| The question is whether the government, in cahoots with a
| company, can perform mass warrantless searches on every
| citizen under the plain-view doctrine when they have no
| reasonable articulable suspicion that a crime has been
| committed.
| woodruffw wrote:
| What is being searched and/or seized? The entire point of a
| license plate is that it's publicly readable, and US
| federal courts have consistently held that the exteriors of
| cars (and parts visible through windows) are not considered
| private spaces for the purposes of warrant requirements.
|
| That isn't to say that you can't make a good civic argument
| against increased public surveillance; only that the
| current practices are not meaningfully disputed as
| unconstitutional.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| > The entire point of a license plate is that it's
| publicly readable
|
| Sure. By eyeballs.
|
| But when you install technology that makes the license
| plate a tracking device where they can map out your
| movements minute by minute as if you had some radio
| beacon hidden under the bumper, they're not "publicly
| reading" it. Why would the radio beacon be illegal
| without a warrant, but this be legal without it? They
| accomplish the same.
| lonelyasacloud wrote:
| >Sure. By eyeballs
|
| So in terms of concern about the enforcement of bad laws
| surely the correct way to deal with those is in the
| legislative process, rather than on relying on gaps in
| human enforcement later on?
|
| Otherwise why artificially make law enforcement more
| inefficient?
| gnicholas wrote:
| I have wondered about this. Would anyone feel differently
| -- or should the law apply differently -- to a system
| that enables remote workers to watch a video feed and
| write down all of the license plate numbers they see?
| UncleEntity wrote:
| > A researcher who focuses on a range of surveillance
| technologies, Maass said he has a particular problem with
| license plate readers because every driver needs a tag to
| get on the road. It's a requirement, he said, "that was
| not designed for this purpose." "There's not a lot you
| can do to protect yourself from them other than just stop
| driving," Maass said. "They're set up in this way that,
| in order for you to get to work and to travel freely, you
| have to submit to your data being monetized by a private
| company and then sold to law enforcement."
|
| There's a few videos on the youtubes where _perfectly
| law-abiding citizens_ were pulled out of their vehicles
| _at gunpoint_ due to false positives from systems like
| this.
| renewiltord wrote:
| It's actually pretty crazy that when I walk to work I
| illegally search and seize everyone I lay my eyes on. So
| far I've gotten away with it every day. Sometimes I even do
| it at work. Illegally searched and seized my coworker's cat
| the other day, but he just illegally searched and seized me
| and then meowed.
| tonyarkles wrote:
| > I illegally search and seize everyone I lay my eyes on
|
| This is where you need to keep in mind that there's a
| spectrum and a balance. Ultimately it's up to the Supreme
| Court to decide where the cut-off points are. To take
| your example and riff on it a bit:
|
| - There's you walking to work and mentally taking note of
| everyone you walk past
|
| - There's you walking to work with a video camera and
| casually recording everyone you walk past
|
| - There's you walking to work with a video camera and
| getting into people's personal space to make sure your
| video accurate captures enough of their facial features
| to make a positive biometric identification
|
| - There's you walking to work, seeing someone in
| particular, and following them to their destination while
| recording the entire time
|
| - There's you putting up a high-resolution camera in
| front of your house to record everyone walking past,
| whether or not you're watching it at the time
|
| - There's you putting up time-synchronized high-
| resolution cameras on every light post in your
| neighbourhood
|
| - There's taking your network of time-synchronized high-
| resolution cameras and adding facial/person recognition
| to it so that you automatically get a timestamped path of
| where _everyone_ walked at what time
|
| - There's expanding your network of time-synchronized
| high-resolution cameras with person recognition to cover
| your entire city and selling access to person-location
| data
|
| Figuring out where the acceptable/unacceptable cutoff
| line is for private citizens, corporations, and
| governments is going to be an interesting question
| that'll have to be answered in the near future.
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| You don't seem to understand the implications of systems
| like these so let me give you a scenario of something in
| the near future that can happen:
|
| A 33-year-old woman became pregnant due to a failure in
| her birth control but is not looking to have a child and
| is looking to have an abortion. She goes to her OBGYN and
| finds out that the fetus is around 7 weeks of gestation,
| and therefore, cannot have an abortion in her state.
|
| She schedules an abortion procedure with a doctor out of
| state that does allow abortions after 6 weeks. She drives
| to the airport, flies out to the state, has the
| procedure, and then flies back home. Per her state's law
| (let's say it's Texas) she did not utilize the highways
| or drive through a town like Amarillo to receive the
| abortion.[1]
|
| Systems such as these, selling user data to both state
| and federal agencies bought data that included her travel
| patterns in it. The system (recognizing her license
| plate, vehicle make and model, and the state having that
| plate registered in her name) shows that she has traveled
| to a clinic in the state, then later to the airport (with
| TSA facial identification indicating she did indeed fly),
| she was then spotted at a clinic in another state by
| their Flock cameras, then flew back home and drove home.
| But also, the government agencies bought data from a
| period tracker and it also had her information in there.
| With GPS, IP Address, and other data they were able to
| attribute data to her that showed that she was late on
| her period.[2]
|
| The state then charges her with the crime of receiving an
| abortion out of state, even though she did not break any
| law. She did not receive an abortion in the state, nor
| travel through a city that prohibits that. But good luck
| explaining that to an Attorney General who decides to
| follow the "spirit of the law" in this case rather than
| the text of the law.
|
| This is what people are afraid of. No human being would
| ever be allowed to conduct this level of spying on anyone
| without violating their right to privacy. But because we
| allowed this data to be collected and shared for
| commercial purposes, it's somehow legal and okay? We are
| becoming a police state where who you know, where you go,
| what you do, your patterns, your habits, your scrolling,
| your fitness tracking, your purchases, and the amount of
| time you spend walking around Walmart are now all
| available to a government. These aren't systems you can
| "opt" out of. Facebook tracks and sells your data through
| their Pixel whether you have an account or not. These
| Flock cameras track and sell your location data whether
| you're driving, walking, riding a bike, etc. There is no
| opting out, there is no not participating, there is no
| way to protect your privacy and continue to exist in this
| world.
|
| These are very real fears that people have, and all it
| takes is for a government to get through its bureaucracy
| once to determine how to process this deluge of
| information and then there is no turning back.
|
| [1] https://www.texastribune.org/2023/12/13/abortion-
| travel-ban-...
|
| [2] https://www.npr.org/2022/05/10/1097482967/roe-v-wade-
| supreme...
| mindslight wrote:
| The entire goal of limited government beholden to the People.
| Most of the destruction is due to the critical flaw in the
| Constitution that only constrains nominal Government
| behavior, paving the path of _extraconstitutional_ corporate
| control that we 're suffering today. I think _this_ is what
| Godel was referring to in his conversation with Einstein
| about the Constitution having a logical flaw that would allow
| it to be subverted, not the common belief that it was merely
| about the amendment capability.
|
| In addition to the underlying extraconstitutional erosion,
| the Supreme Council has directly created many legal
| justifications, both for indirect violation through
| government-corporate synergy and even for blatant direct
| violation by the nominal Government. Personally I look at the
| Bill of Rights as a list of test cases by which to judge
| effective outcomes, and they're basically all failing.
| Kilonzus wrote:
| Hm very strange the title did have to do with Flock Safety when
| it was first posted and now is referencing Claude not sure of
| user error or something to do with hacker news. I'll put a tin
| foil hat on for just a second, Flock Safety is a graduate of Y
| Combinator so maybe the misnaming is not as innocent as it may
| seem?
|
| My 2 cents: I live in the Atlanta metro and it's crazy just how
| much Flock has permeated communities. From main streets to small
| neighborhoods flock safety cameras are in use everywhere, it is
| off putting. I'm not sure if HOAs are the ones OKing them or if
| it's the city but having a private corporation able to run
| cameras that read plates and can potentially surveil home
| consistently seems like undue erosion of privacy
| kotaKat wrote:
| Ah yes, I went Flock-spotting through the Atlanta suburbs. HOAs
| are encouraged to buy them. As long as you've got the
| $2500-per-camera-per-year ($208/mo) for their all-inclusive
| package, you too can adopt your own little invasion of privacy
| by the roadside.
|
| Which also means... I know I'd really be pissed if I was stuck
| helping foot the bill for an entire gander of them when the HOA
| dues come in...
| dang wrote:
| It was a misclick.
| tkems wrote:
| One of the Flock cameras was installed in my city nearby where I
| live. Once I noticed it, I thought it was a red light camera at
| first since it was near an intersection.
|
| I did some research on them and found that they are completely
| wireless (cellular network most of the time) and powered by a 65w
| solar panel. Since they capture every license plate that passes
| by, I wasn't thrilled it was a private company keeping the data,
| even if they say they only keep it for 30 days.
|
| I did a FOIA request with my city to see how many are in use and
| their locations to share with my community. I also plan on asking
| why my city thinks it is a good use of tax dollars. I think it
| should be a requirement for cities to disclose their use since it
| is a private company installing private equipment (and a camera
| at that!) on public land to monitor the public.
| tptacek wrote:
| Flock got introduced to my municipality (Oak Park, IL) when
| OPPD was able to use data from a neighboring muni (it may have
| been Chicago, I forget which) to work back on an incident. OPPD
| had (has) authority to make arbitrary technology acquisitions
| so long as they're under a fixed cost (I believe $20k) --- this
| is a common arrangement in area munis, and maybe around the
| country --- which, if you're a product manager at Flock, gives
| you a trivial and effective game plan: go close deals to get
| <$20k pilot deployments up and running, and then work on
| expanding them.
|
| The problem you have if Flock squicks you out is that you're
| not a normie. Flock's pitch to normies is incredibly
| compelling. Flock theoretically lights up any time a stolen car
| drives into your muni; stolen cars are a primary vector for
| crimes (here, especially: carjacking, but also thefts,
| burglaries, etc). The data it collects is shareable only, and
| with consent, to other law enforcement agencies. It records
| make/model/color/plate, but no other direct identifying
| information. Assume for the moment that it all works as
| advertised, and it's on paper a weird capability to push back
| on your local police having.
|
| Our own OPPD messed up acquiring Flock. I think they tried to
| skip the pilot, and go straight to a muni-wide rollout, which
| required board approval. That blindsided the board. Instead of
| rubber-stamping it as expected, the board kicked it out to the
| technology and police oversight (CPOC) citizens commissions. I
| serve on one of those. Here's what we came up with:
|
| https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v_sko3OljbZUEbcZbv_L9q9z...
|
| What we ended up getting:
|
| * A negotiated special-purpose police general order governing
| use of Flock, limiting it to violent crime, and installing
| procedural safeguards (most notably: a monthly readout to CPOC
| on Flock hits).
|
| * A rollback down to 8 cameras from 20+.
|
| * A one-year review of how Flock went.
|
| The glaring hole left open: we have no direct public input on
| which munis we share Flock data with.
|
| A year later, the monthly readouts to CPOC were FOIA'd and
| published, and the results are in: overwhelmingly, Flock stops
| in Oak Park were not responsive to crimes in Oak Park, but
| rather had OPPD doing warrants enforcement work for neighboring
| munis. Worse: the premise of Flock, that we could plug into
| regional hot-lists of stolen cars and cordon Oak Park off from
| them, turned out to be terribly flawed: the CPD hot-list is
| full of bullshit reports or recovered cars never cleared, so we
| were regularly pulling random innocent people over. The Flock
| _technology_ worked fine! But the municipal systems it depends
| just aren 't ready to safely use it.
|
| The big thing coming off Flock for us is ACLU's CCOPS model
| ordinance, which adds mandatory board review for any
| surveillance technology (broadly defined in the ordinance). We
| worked for 4-5 months getting it prepped for the board, which
| has counsel drafting a local enacting ordinance; I'm optimistic
| we'll get it this year. CCOPS is something any muni can get;
| it's a good pitch, with something for a lot of different
| constituencies to like.
|
| I think the "private company monitoring public land" thing is
| an argument that carries a lot of weight on Twitter and HN, but
| my experience in (our own specific) local politics is that it's
| a good way to get people to look at you like a Martian.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > The data it collects is shareable only, and with consent,
| to other law enforcement agencies.
|
| > It records make/model/color/plate, but no other direct
| identifying information. Assume for the moment that it all
| works as advertised, and it's on paper a weird capability to
| push back on your local police having.
|
| Ex Flock employee here... the first part may have changed,
| but private organizations (HOAs, mostly) can also have Flock
| deployments, and are not subject to the same sharing
| restrictions.
|
| Also, image recognition does a lot more, it can identify
| vehicles by mismatched panel colors, roof racks, trailer
| hitches, bumper stickers and other factors, too.
| tptacek wrote:
| Right, sorry, I'm aware that there are private HOA-style
| Flock deployments too, I'm just talking about the Flock
| pitch to municipalities.
| juris wrote:
| XD so would it be illegal to blast IR to cover your plate
| specifically tuned to these cameras if they are private domain?
| baggy_trough wrote:
| These have been deployed in my neighborhood, and I'm very happy
| with that. It's the best technique the police have to catch home
| burglars, of which there are an ever increasing number, I believe
| due to soft on crime policies.
| cm2012 wrote:
| Huge huge fan of increased surveillance in public places. The
| reason is that it's pretty well proven that likelihood of getting
| caught for crimes is much better at deterrence than severity of
| sentence. By enforcing crimes more consistently, we can actually
| reduce incarceration.
| svieira wrote:
| And I am a huge opponent of it because anything that can be
| used to track criminals can be used to track everyone. And if
| everyone is a criminal (imagine the-other-guy getting control
| of the system) then you are not actually deterring anyone,
| simply ensuring that whoever-is-on-the-outside is going to get
| the law coming down on them hard while whoever-is-on-the-inside
| will get let go in spite of direct evidence of their misdeeds
| being streamed to the cloud 24x7x365.
| infecto wrote:
| I am in a similar boat. I appreciate that there is opposition
| so that we can keep a balance but I am pro surveillance as
| well. There is potential for abuse but I also recognize that as
| a regions population increases, sometimes you have to conform
| to things to create a stable society.
|
| I would love a national ID that I could use everywhere. Again
| ripe for abuse but I can see the benefits outweighing the
| negatives.
| itsanaccount wrote:
| I believe in people getting exactly the government they
| deserve. Just so long as its regionally voted for (which
| excludes national ID), you should definitely go and live
| there.
|
| I myself will stay far away from any Leopards Eating People's
| Faces Party areas and their "stable society."
| infecto wrote:
| >I believe in people getting exactly the government they
| deserve. Just so long as its regionally voted for (which
| excludes national ID), you should definitely go and live
| there.
|
| >I myself will stay far away from any Leopards Eating
| People's Faces Party areas and their "stable society."
|
| And here is a prime example of why discourse is so hard in
| the modern era. Please don't create outrage where none
| exists. Please don't bring politics into something that is
| not political.
|
| As society progresses its harder to just go with the flow
| and not have different types of regulation. You would
| expect everyone to be a rational actor, but they are not.
| There is a minimum level of conformity required for most
| functioning societies.
|
| Happy that people disagree with my take on public
| surveillance but disappointed with your sense of false
| outrage and brashness. It so sad this is what pollutes so
| much of our information and discourse.
| staticshock wrote:
| I see quite a bit more false outrage in your statements
| than in the ones you're replying to. Also, on what
| grounds do you consider your position to be apolitical?
| Self-evidence?
| infecto wrote:
| To each their own. I am far from outraged but I guess it
| depends what biased lens you look at it through.
|
| Why does a position need to be political? Of course in
| modern US politics, party lines are stronger than ever
| and by identifying strongly with a party you generally
| identify with certain positions. But I don't believe its
| true that to have a position or view of the world means
| you have a political position. Being political, and
| outraged for that matter, happens when you tell someone
| to go somewhere else to live or explicitly bring (by
| naming) politics into a discussion.
|
| I like the idea of having cameras everywhere, along with
| the idea that I like all police to wear cameras to hold
| everyone in the interaction accountable.
| grraaaaahhh wrote:
| >Why does a position need to be political?
|
| Mass surveillance involves giving the government, an
| inherently political entity, and its partners in the
| private sector increased power over public life. It's
| hard to get a more political issue than that.
| infecto wrote:
| I will give up here, its political in that it involves a
| political entity. Its depressing that the original
| comment jumped to "republicans are bad" logic so quickly.
| I understand your bias, its immediately noticeable in all
| of those republican subreddits as well.
| jltsiren wrote:
| It's the topic of the discussion that makes something
| political, not the position or the attitude. If you are
| talking about the affairs of the society, if you are
| assuming the role of a citizen (rather than a private
| individual), you being political.
| all2well wrote:
| Surveillance, in public, run by the government, is _not_
| a political issue?
| infecto wrote:
| It is political in so much that it is something that
| should be decided by the people voting and case law. Lets
| be honest, thats not what I meant though and you should
| see that. Both sides are unfortunately polarized in their
| commentary as exampled by the poster I replied to.
| Instead of it being a discussion about privacy it
| devolved immediately into a go live somewhere else and
| throwing in a republican reference. Thats bringing in the
| wrong kind of politics into the conversation but lets
| ignore that. I identify with neither party and find it
| depressing when people are so polarized by either side,
| it becomes an immediate them vs us conversation.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| I'm not sure your argument has the moral superiority you
| think it has.
|
| Nobody is "creating outrage where none exists" nor are
| they bringing "politics into something that is not
| political."
|
| We're discussing public policy around surveillance and
| many of us disagree with your position.
|
| BTW, the term "Leopards Eating People's Faces Party"
| refers to a lot more than just Republicans - it was
| commonly used against Brexit supporters, as one example:
| https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/leopards-eating-peoples-
| faces...
| Clubber wrote:
| >BTW, the term "Leopards Eating People's Faces Party"
| refers to a lot more than just Republicans
|
| I stopped watching politics about 5 years ago and I
| constantly have to fight my YouTube feed to keep it out.
| I've never heard that term and I'm glad I don't know what
| it means. It shows the political deprogramming is finally
| happening.
| infecto wrote:
| I am not so sure you understood my point. But I get it,
| we all have our biases.
| itsanaccount wrote:
| Its not politics insomuch as its a theory of organized
| society. You believe in a system of control. You make a
| claim that control is necessary for you to be protected
| from irrational actors.
|
| Instead of argue with you, because I do really think
| that's a hard and in depth argument, I'm telling you
| about those like me who don't believe control is
| necessary for society. So much so that I think you should
| be able to disagree with me, and the only limiting factor
| here is land/area/which society.
|
| I predict that you will fall victim to the control you
| want to protect you, and can think of no better way to
| prove my argument than have you live it.
| infecto wrote:
| Typical response unfortunately. Why even stoop to such a
| low level of throwing shade when you have nothing
| intelligent to add to the matter?
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| We can also expand what is considered a crime too. Without the
| cameras, cost/benefit just makes it impossible to enforce some
| tyrannical edicts, but if we all live in a fishbowl monitored
| by computers whose machine learning can flag nearly any
| activity, wow, just think of the possibilities. We don't even
| need to formally punish these, some interest group will just
| call up your employers and suggest very strongly that it would
| embarrass them deeply if they continued to employ you.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| The statement "By enforcing crimes more consistently, we can
| actually reduce incarceration" sounds logical and reasonable,
| but actually isn't necessarily true unless A and B below are
| also true.
|
| A. Actions that are considered crimes do not change over time.
|
| B. Incentives to catch and prosecute crimes are not KPIed based
| on incarceration rates.
| rpgwaiter wrote:
| Ya know what also deters crimes? Having your needs met. I bet
| the money spent towards this spying apparatus could have been
| spent on housing programs, education, healthcare.
|
| Nah, lets give it to a company to make it easier to punish
| people.
| cm2012 wrote:
| The evidence for this hypothesis is not great
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Cops have not demonstrated that access to more surveillance
| actually helps them catch more people. Meanwhile they still
| keep getting caught on their own bodycams dropping "evidence"
| like a bag of cocaine (where did the cop get that I wonder....)
| to screw innocent people over, at least when they aren't doing
| it with the bodycam off.
|
| In fact, despite massive increases to surveillance tech,
| including cops having the location of anyone's cell phone
| whenever they want it thanks to private companies that are
| allowed to sell such data to cops with pretty much no limits,
| even though the cops themselves are not supposed to have such
| data, the clearance rate for violent crime is abysmal, 30ish
| percent.
|
| Meanwhile property crime clearance rates are EVEN LOWER, at
| about 12%.
|
| We don't even keep good stats about white collar crime
| meanwhile...
|
| Before we give the cops more toys to harass us with, can we at
| least make them demonstrate they actually use the tools they
| have? Right now cops demonstrably do not do their jobs.
| perhonen wrote:
| nah i'll take the crime thanks
| zachmu wrote:
| Very cool company, now involved in solving 10% of reported crime
| in the US.
|
| They use DoltDB to version control their machine learning feature
| store:
|
| https://www.dolthub.com/blog/2024-03-07-dolt-flock/
| apwheele wrote:
| OP for sharing this on hackernews (and I talked to Tyler Dukes
| a bit about this). I think ALPR's are good investments, but
| having more rigorous standards in place for when people can do
| searches is necessary. There are rules for when you can run a
| criminal history background in states I am familiar with (that
| are policy set, so less rigorous than a warrant), that I think
| should be applied the same for searching license plates without
| too much friction for law enforcement.
|
| I think Flock has a good product (and ditto I think Dolt is
| neat!) But that said, this 10% metric is so ridiculous it rises
| to the level I need to make a comment. Imagine I did something
| to decrease crime by 10% in two cities, and then went and made
| a claim like "I decreased crime 10% in the US" -- this is
| Flock's claim. (The study to get the 10% clearance estimate is
| crazy bad as well, but this 10% of solved crimes in US is such
| a bizarro projection to the entire US it is inarguable as to
| its absurdity).
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| The 10% of crimes (700k+ total) being solved in part due to Flock
| is insane.
|
| I'm guessing they couldn't make this claim if it wasn't at least
| partly true, and they already include the caveat of 'solved' so
| it's not just 'tips'.
|
| Truly impressive honestly, for a company started in 2017 to have
| that much of an impact.
| advisedwang wrote:
| I think it's foolish to take a company's marketing claims at
| face value. Do not trust them to be accurately representing
| what is "solved". Do not trust them as to what "solved in part
| due to Flock" means.
|
| Frankly I suspect all this means is they served up a location
| hit to X requests, and they have a crime stat somehwere that
| says Y crimes have occurred. X/Y = 10%. Woo, what heros.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| Could be, I'm skeptical as well, but as I said they already
| added the caveat of 'solved' in their claim.
|
| Anyways here's their own post about how they came to that
| conclusion for anyone who cares to read.
| https://www.flocksafety.com/resources/how-many-crimes-do-
| aut....
| advisedwang wrote:
| The SCALE of the surveillance is really the important thing.
|
| Many comments here correctly point out that you don't have an
| expectation of privacy in public. But that rule was really
| created envisioning the occasional person observing the
| occasional person/act/event. Even a cop tailing you is so
| expensive that its not deployed everywhere. The rule did not
| anticipate a system where every person is observed all the time.
| This is a situation where "quantity has a quality all of it's
| own".
|
| Mass surveillance needs to be held to higher standard than
| regular public observation.
| pixl97 wrote:
| This is why we need the DRONES Act. That is all politicians
| should be followed and recorded drone mounted cameras any time
| they are on public property or viewable from public property.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Most of the comments here are against the use of cameras to
| monitor public spaces. But how else is society supposed to deal
| with crime while limiting expense on police officers, detectives,
| prosecutors, and all that? Surveillance and AI powered
| surveillance (with human verification) seems like a good way to
| track and identify and capture criminals. I definitely think
| there should be some regulation to protect the data, require
| probable cause, warrants, or whatever - but I don't think banning
| it is the right answer either. Unless we are willing to become
| harsher on crime in other ways to deter it.
| linuxftw wrote:
| The problem is the 'crime' and not the actual crime. Like being
| around the capitol building Jan 6 2021.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| How many people were arrested for peacefully being "around"
| the Capitol building?
| denimnerd42 wrote:
| A shopping center nearby uses flock to "ticket" and fine
| employees that park in residential streets (which creates bad
| relations with neighbors) instead of the designated remote
| parking. I guess part of the lease/employment agreement states
| the proper directions or fine will be incurred. An employee
| drives around in a golf cart with an app/website/scanner/not
| sure. I know they use Flock though because it's been mentioned in
| community zoning meetings w/ regards to their expansion efforts.
|
| Kind of interesting you can pay for a private service which will
| uncloak license plates. I wonder how much it is as I'd love to
| uncloak neighborhood speeders too.
| flawsofar wrote:
| Why not just name your company Freedom Surveillance while you're
| at it
| greentxt wrote:
| In the long run this will enable more crime than it deters. If I
| have a target I could determine where they are at all times, what
| they do, train models on their behavior and get social network
| info, etc...
|
| I'm sure the claim will be that the system is secure and not easy
| for criminals to use for criminal purposes but everyone here
| knows or should know that's a falsehood. It cannot be secured and
| will be used by adversaries against law abiding citizens.
| chabons wrote:
| I really doubt this would be how things play out. Most crime
| isn't sophisticated or targeted.
|
| The same argument can be made about internet-connected security
| cameras in general, that they could allow for remotely casing a
| potential target, and they're generally considered to be a
| deterrent, and not an enabler of crime.
| greentxt wrote:
| Good point but apples and oranges. It's the centralization of
| all the information that makes the technology useful for both
| the good guys and also for the bad guys. Surely there are no
| cases where those in positions of authority misuse that
| authority to target people(1)?
|
| 1. https://www.foxla.com/news/la-county-assistant-da-charged-
| wi...
| JudasGoat wrote:
| Seeing as many modern cars have camera arrays. I wonder if an
| auto manufacturer could sell access to their camera network to
| "authorities" as a more effective surveillance application?
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