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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

#121

Post by necovek »

tptacek wrote: post #111
ScoobleDoodle wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked it up at https://cppa.ca.gov/data_broker_registry/ and didn't find Flock / Flock Safety in that list of the currently registered 566 data brokers.

Because Flock isn't a data broker. Flock's customers own their data, not Flock, and they use Flock's platform voluntarily to share data with other customers.

I was referring to the claim that "Flock's cameras collect more data than is provided to police agencies" — that suggests that there is data not "owned" by the customers, which implies it's Flock's data, thus it might make them liable under Data Broker legislation.

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

#123

Post by cwillu »

tptacek wrote: post #111
ScoobleDoodle wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked it up at https://cppa.ca.gov/data_broker_registry/ and didn't find Flock / Flock Safety in that list of the currently registered 566 data brokers.

Because Flock isn't a data broker. Flock's customers own their data, not Flock, and they use Flock's platform voluntarily to share data with other customers.

Equivocation. My stock broker doesn't own my stocks either, they merely hold my assets in a brokerage account.

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

#124

Post by tptacek »

cwillu wrote: post #123
tptacek wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Flock isn't a data broker. Flock's customers own their data, not Flock, and they use Flock's platform voluntarily to share data with other customers.

Equivocation. My stock broker doesn't own my stocks either, they merely hold my assets in a brokerage account.

I encourage you to present that analogy to an actual court and see how far it gets you. It's very easy to find the statutory definition of a "data broker" under California law.

This is what I mean by the fruitlessness of these kinds of legal discussions on HN. What do you want me to argue, that you're wrong to want the law to work that way?

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

#125

Post by adrr »

kstrauser wrote: post #65
snowwrestler wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Personal information” has a legal definition and photos of you in a public street might not satisfy it, regardless of the photographer’s intent.

I think it'd be challenging to rule that a license plate number is not personally identifiable information, when the same regulations often state that an IP address is.

Or home address, phone number, etc

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

#126

Post by stephbook »

inetknght wrote: post #48
ldoughty wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that the request was invalid in the first place. If I see a flash on a speed camera operated by a business on behalf of a police department, your argument states I should be able to use CCPA to force the business to delete my picture and the record of me speeding If I can get the request to them before the police can file with the court and request that data as evidence. The data belongs to the governme…

> If I see a flash on a speed camera operated by a business on behalf of a police department, your argument states I should be able to use CCPA to force the business to delete my picture and the record of me speeding If I can get the request to them before the police can file with the court and request that data as evidence. Sounds reasonable to me. If the police want to put up a camera, then the police should put up…

"Hey private prison please delete all data you have about me. And by the way, I'm locked up here by accident. Please release me."

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

#127

Post by tadfisher »

patrickmay wrote: post #105
necovek wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal information usually does include photos of someone in public without their consent: exceptions usually hold for taking photos of people where it is in the public interest to be able to show them or impractical to get consent. This covers large gatherings and celebrities, but a portrait photo of a stranger might put you on the wrong side of the law. Obviously, the idea is to not disallow having someone take a…

> Personal information usually does include photos of someone in public without their consent This is not the case in the United States. There is no presumption of privacy in public. In fact, there is a whole genre known as "street photography" that involves taking pictures in public without explicit consent of the subjects.

This is true, and it may also be true that location tracking through surveillance networks crosses a line into violating one or more Constitutional rights. One of Flock's revenue streams is explicitly selling access to data made available by other customers. A commonly-cited example is the ability of local law enforcement to locate abortion suspects in other states using the Flock camera network [0]; one could imagine dragnet-style or geofenced queries to also cross the line.

[0]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/10/flock-safety-and-texas...

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

#128

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

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…

Under GDPR, I believe that would be accurate. I think CCPA was to some extent inspired by GDPR so I wouldn't be surprised if they copied this point too.

Which, hilariously, means that under GDPR, you only need to contact the web site, and they have to go talk to their 1207 partners that value your privacy to fulfill your request (I'm sure that in practice they'll say "sorry it's all 'anonymous' so we can't" or "we can't be sure that it's you even though you provided the identifier from your cookies"). I'm really disappointed that NOYB hasn't started going after web sites like that - that's quickly put a damper on the whole web surveillance economy.

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

#129

Post by lotsofpulp »

pksebben wrote: post #71
snowwrestler wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not clear to me that it is actually your data. If I take a picture of you in a public place, I own the picture, not you. But maybe I am unclear on how Flock works.

Isn't flock's whole thing that they extract information from the pictures they have? Like, say I have an interview in your office and you step out for coffee. I take a picture of the applicant list on your desk. That doesn't make the list of applicants "my data".

>I take a picture of the applicant list on your desk. That doesn't make the list of applicants "my data".

If the list is sitting there out in the open, then yes, it does make it your data.

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

#130

Post by tadfisher »

tptacek wrote: post #111
ScoobleDoodle wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked it up at https://cppa.ca.gov/data_broker_registry/ and didn't find Flock / Flock Safety in that list of the currently registered 566 data brokers.

Because Flock isn't a data broker. Flock's customers own their data, not Flock, and they use Flock's platform voluntarily to share data with other customers.

Flock charges to access the data which is voluntarily shared by other customers. I am struggling to note a difference in this practice from any other data brokerage service in existence.

Does Flock do some kind of P2P dance to avoid the data transiting their systems?

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