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I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program

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Re: I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program

#91

Post by danudey »

tptacek wrote: post #38
yabutlivnWoods wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your example is apples and oranges. Flock maintains private infrastructure that stores data. If the DSLR uploaded them to Rent-A-Center owned/leased servers it would in fact require Rent-A-Center to take the necessary steps. As Rent-A-Center would be the only group with proper access to data storage they would have inserted themselves into the chain of custody, and thereby have such obligation to ensure others data i…

AWS also maintains private infrastructure that stores data. Go write them asking to purge data pertaining to you from S3 and see how that goes.

If AWS maintained private infrastructure that stored and indexed data associated with people's license plates and vehicles and then charged customers to do searches against that data then yes, you could write them to ask them to purge data pertaining to you.

If Flock was just an opaque cloud storage service for law enforcement to back up their mass surveillance to then sure, your argument would have merit; it's not, it's a giant database of photos, locations, times, license plate information, and likely a lot more. They're not selling cloud storage, they're selling (leasing?) surveillance devices and tools.

Re: I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program

#92

Post by FireBeyond »

hmokiguess wrote: post #83

https://www.flocksafety.com/legal/lpr-policy > In accordance with its Terms and Conditions, Flock Safety may access, use, preserve and/or disclose the LPR data to law enforcement authorities, government officials, and/or third parties, if legally required to do so or if Flock has a good faith belief that such access, use, preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with a legal process, enforce the a…

> Continuing down below, their claim on "Trust Us" about how they employ machine learning would need some proper transparency into how can that be guaranteed.

Wait til you see their "Transparency Portal" which, if my County and neighboring can be used as a sample size, doesn't even name at least 30% of agencies using Flock.

Re: I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program

#93

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

uoaei wrote: post #86
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but in this context the license plate number is still personal information, just of a different person.

Then the key aspect of our discussion is the "identifiable" part, which you've left out.

Are you now saying that one cannot possibly "identify" the "person" who owns a vehicle, solely with the "information" on a license plate?

Re: I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program

#94

Post by danudey »

tptacek wrote: post #34
kstrauser wrote: post #2

I wrote this. I had/have absolutely no expectation that Flock would comply with my request, but figured I should try anyway For Science. Their reply rubbed me wrong, though. They seem to claim that there are no restrictions on their collection and processing of PII because other people pay them for it. They say: > Flock Safety’s customers own the data and make all decisions around how such data is used and shared. wh…

Wait, is it your data? If you drive your car in front of a Ring camera on my house (I don't have a Ring camera don't @ me), is it your claim that you own the data on that camera?

The laws say that data about you is your data, information about you is your information. No one is saying that you "own the data", but by virtue of the data being personal information about you specificially you are allowed to exert control over that data, such as asking for it to be deleted.

Re: I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program

#95

Post by tptacek »

danudey wrote: post #91
tptacek wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AWS also maintains private infrastructure that stores data. Go write them asking to purge data pertaining to you from S3 and see how that goes.

If AWS maintained private infrastructure that stored and indexed data associated with people's license plates and vehicles and then charged customers to do searches against that data then yes, you could write them to ask them to purge data pertaining to you. If Flock was just an opaque cloud storage service for law enforcement to back up their mass surveillance to then sure, your argument would have merit; it's not,…

The argument you're making implicates way more than just Flock, and is in a practical sense novel. If you can cite jurisprudence (or even legal experts) backing it up, I'm interested in reading it. Otherwise, I'm happy to accept that we just have premises about the law that are too far apart for an argument to be productive.

My experience on HN is that these kinds of discussions almost immediately devolve into debates about what people want the law to be, as opposed to what it actually is.

Re: I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program

#96

Post by kube-system »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #84
uoaei wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Anyone could have been driving my car, you can't positively identify me in the driver's seat with the evidence you have submitted" is routinely used to toss out cases involving traffic violations. It's not necessarily common but it does happen. By this logic a license plate does not personally identify the person driving, only the person the car is registered to.

Right, but in this context the license plate number is still personal information, just of a different person.

The CCPA explictly says:

> “Personal information” does not include [...] Information that a business has a reasonable basis to believe is lawfully made available to the general public by the consumer

Re: I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program

#97

Post by john_strinlai »

tptacek wrote: post #73
kstrauser wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you put up a Ring camera on a stand in front of your house for the specific purpose of selling that I drove past at this specific timestamp? If so, yes. The CCPA[0] gives me explicit legal rights: * The right to know about the personal information a business collects about them and how it is used and shared; * The right to delete personal information collected from them (with some exceptions); * The right to opt-…

I think you're going to find that you're wrong about this, and that you're not going to get anywhere targeting Flock in particular, as opposed to the owners of Flock cameras. Consider that California has had multiple rounds of legislation about red light camera legislation, including new limitations on it, and all of those cameras are also from commercial providers collecting your PII. Your argument proves too much.…

>you're not going to get anywhere targeting Flock in particular, as opposed to the owners of Flock cameras.

fyi, flock owns the cameras.

"We operate using a lease model. What does that mean? Since we own the hardware, we own the problems that occur."

Re: I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program

#98

Post by pugworthy »

nekusar wrote: post #20

The only opt-out the citizenry has is with any of the following: 2x4 rebar spraypaint spray foam battery powered metal cutter And bash those pieces of shit to chunks or completely ruin the lens and solar. Republican community? They love corporate surveillance. Democrat community? They too love corporate surveillance. There is no "Peoples' Party" that rejects this garbage.

All materials available at major home improvement centers - which happen to be very popular Flock camera locations.

Re: I wrote to Flock's privacy contact to opt out of their domestic spying program

#100

Post by kstrauser »

tptacek wrote: post #73
kstrauser wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you put up a Ring camera on a stand in front of your house for the specific purpose of selling that I drove past at this specific timestamp? If so, yes. The CCPA[0] gives me explicit legal rights: * The right to know about the personal information a business collects about them and how it is used and shared; * The right to delete personal information collected from them (with some exceptions); * The right to opt-…

I think you're going to find that you're wrong about this, and that you're not going to get anywhere targeting Flock in particular, as opposed to the owners of Flock cameras. Consider that California has had multiple rounds of legislation about red light camera legislation, including new limitations on it, and all of those cameras are also from commercial providers collecting your PII. Your argument proves too much.…

FWIW, I just did this as an experiment and turned it into a blog post afterward. I didn't really set out with an agenda or a deliberate audience, and I didn't share it here. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to chat about it! But this ended up here without any special effort on my part.
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