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US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

cnet.com

11–20 of 468 posts

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#11
post #7

I'm surprised Garrett Langley still has a job, he seems wildly out of touch. For instance he really believes that his Panopticon as a service is the reason crime is down in cities, conveniently ignoring crime rates prior to COVID.

Does he really believe it or is it his job to say he really believes it?

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#12
post #9

I realize how unpopular flock is, and I will first say that I have literally never personally looked into the privacy concerns. But one city you don’t see named here is SF, which has cited Flock as a primary driver of its 10x reduction in car break-ins, and 30% reduction in burglaries. Those were a quality of life plague while I lived there

Crime's been descending from the COVID blip for a while, everywhere, Flock or otherwise. My city saw zero murders in Q1; 2021 saw ~15 by now.

In other words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSVqLHghLpw

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#13
It's funny, if the company had just sold cameras to cities, they probably could have avoided this whole mess. But they just had to hit some keywords for Wall Street (like "AI" "cloud" and "SaaS"), which had the side-effect of making it appear (true or not) that they were part of a Palantir-style surveillance panopticon that tracks you everywhere.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#14
post #7

I'm surprised Garrett Langley still has a job, he seems wildly out of touch. For instance he really believes that his Panopticon as a service is the reason crime is down in cities, conveniently ignoring crime rates prior to COVID.

Does he really believe it or is it his job to say he really believes it?

Could he tell the difference?

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#16
post #7

I'm surprised Garrett Langley still has a job, he seems wildly out of touch. For instance he really believes that his Panopticon as a service is the reason crime is down in cities, conveniently ignoring crime rates prior to COVID.

He won’t for long. The backlash is just getting started. Left or right, no one wants their whereabouts subject to constant surveillance. His only advantage is that the cops are on his side and won’t let go of these cameras without a fight.

Nah, he's just missing a good PR campaign, there's a 30% of the population that will eat whatever their supreme leaders say they should, I'm sure they can sanewash these cameras as well.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#18
post #7

I'm surprised Garrett Langley still has a job, he seems wildly out of touch. For instance he really believes that his Panopticon as a service is the reason crime is down in cities, conveniently ignoring crime rates prior to COVID.

"Garrett Langley" sounds like what they renamed the villain in Le Mis for an American audience.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#19

Someone in my hometown was arrested for vandalizing them. The media chose to say "city owned security camera". It's amazing how they will rush to defend private enterprise.

Legacy local news is highly dependent on the police for content and access. No surprise.
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