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Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

sfchronicle.com

121–130 of 683 posts

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#121
Here in California (and generally in the US, as well as other places where the cost of enforcing laws seems to be growing too costly/unpalatable), we seem increasingly interested in documenting and retroactively following up the aftermath of crimes. Rather than preventing them when / before they're happening. I'm surprised the police even care to watch video afterwards.

(aside from the serious crime stuff like in the article)

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#123
post #6

Genuine question: What is stopping some small percent of drivers from installing cameras and using ML to identify cars driving dangerously (e.g. speeding, running reds, changing multiple lanes at once, etc.), and when their license plate is identifiable, finding and informing their insurance company? If even a small subset of users did this, and insurers did something with this information, it would substantially dis…

In Switzerland it would be the law preventing that.

Running ML on public footage of people who did not consent is a huge no-no.

Dashcams are already a problem and technically illegal although tolerated. The footage can't generally be used on court.

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live, speeding and red light cameras can only issue fines to the plate holder and don't affect the demerit points of the driver because they don't have evidence of who was driving the vehicle. I imagine it would go the same way with insurance. Unless a cop pulls the person over and gets their ID, tough luck.

The comment you’re responding to is postulating enforcement via higher insurance costs. If insurance gets ~20 reports of someone running a red light, maybe they’ll double the cost to insure that person.

But that's the catch, using ML to scan a plate doesn't confirm who was driving.

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#125
post #6

Genuine question: What is stopping some small percent of drivers from installing cameras and using ML to identify cars driving dangerously (e.g. speeding, running reds, changing multiple lanes at once, etc.), and when their license plate is identifiable, finding and informing their insurance company? If even a small subset of users did this, and insurers did something with this information, it would substantially dis…

https://www.getnexar.com/

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#126
post #36

We've seen this type of thing happen with Ring, where the police want video from people's private cameras. Do police have the legal right to access/take people's private property like this? I thought the 4th amendment of the constitution protected against unreasonable searches and seizures?

If it’s my outdoor cameras and it pertains to a crime that happened just outside my home, they can have the footage. A very practical contribution I can make to my neighborhoods safety

Keep boot licking I guess

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#127

Freedom requires both Liberty and Privacy. An all-seeing state will destroy Liberal society. Reform requires reform of both the government and industry. Industry will happily gather the data and the state will then buy it from industry as a means to circumvent the 4th amendment. https://reason.com/2024/08/20/how-the-feds-buy-their-way-aro...

What does that have to do with this article?

The police are getting warrants for the video.

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#128
post #122

Creepy stuff. Maybe we ought not to constantly record everything happening around us all the time.

Seems like if it’s technically possible, it will happen, and we can’t stop technological progress. In fact, you and I are probably profiting from that progress. Hard to ask a guy to do something that goes against his paycheck. Even if we vote politically “correct,” whomever that may be, what are you and I voting for with our wallets?

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#129
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Road rage is but one example. No one brake checking someone else is doing it rationally. If someone was being rational, they would drive reasonably. They would forgive and forget, and they wouldn't do dangerous things. If drivers were worried about their rates going up, they would not do the very activities that put them in that risk in the first place.

> If drivers were worried about their rates going up, they would not do the very activities that put them in that risk in the first place. Not if they're underestimating the risk. For instance, if they think speed limits are instituted by clueless bureaucrats, or they think they're better than the average driver and therefore can drive more aggressively.

This is a good point. People that drive recklessly and risk personal injury, death, and imprisonment simply do so because they lack a proper disincentive. They would think twice when they envision themselves having to cut a a larger check to State Farm while lying in spinal traction.

Re: Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla

#130
post #122

Creepy stuff. Maybe we ought not to constantly record everything happening around us all the time.

The incidental and systemic benefits of the recordings are exciting to people and celebrated with stories. The hazards of this constant "pollution" of data — how it is slowly changing our society, our economy, our humanity — is harder to quantify or build opposition to.

It's a bit like climate change. Slow, invisible poison.

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