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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

#251

Post by marcus_holmes »

ldoughty wrote: post #24
fudgy73 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK Flock owns the cameras and leases them out [0]. [0] https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/flock-safety-does-my-neighb...

But the data collected is property of the government and flock is not allowed to use that data for additional business gain (according to their statements)... So they can't sell the fact that you're at Target at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday to anybody... Nor build profiles to sell to advertisers... And if that's the case that's very similar to cloud storage vendors. If I access hacker news, and the record of my visit is sto…

> But the data collected is property of the government

I thought this was the get-out clause from the constitutional problems with Flock? That because Flock is a non-government organisation it isn't restricted by the constitution (i.e. the constitution only restricts what the government can do).

They can't have it both ways - if Flock are collecting the data then they are subject to the privacy laws. If it's the government collecting the data via Flock as just a service, then they are subject to constitutional restrictions.

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

#252

Post by MaxikCZ »

robot-wrangler wrote: post #174
carefree-bob wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were saying "don't write to us, talk to the people who own the cameras and ask them to delete the data". A company that manufactures video cameras is not the one to talk to when someone records you, talk to the person who recorded you. But a reasonable person would say -- the data is stored on Flock servers, not with the camera owners. And Flock would say, just because we sell data storage functionality to camer…

> They were saying "don't write to us, talk to the people who own the cameras and ask them to delete the data". The response to this should just be, "Yes, very well, please divulge a complete list of your customers, their contact information, and information about camera locations so I will be able to pursue this per instructions". When that obviously doesn't work either then we can all agree the law as written is co…

> we can all agree the law as written is completely useless

But they wont agree, they find the law very nice in its current form, and have more brib.. ehm, lobying money for it to stay that way.

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

#253

Post by 946789987649 »

empathy_m wrote: post #43

I noticed that the company is glossed as "Flock" and not "Flock Safety (YC S17)" in posts like this and last week's "US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47689237 . Did YC house style change a while back to drop the "(YC xxx)" annotation since so many popular firms particpate / or because it's well known?

Likely the person didn't know they were part of YC (I didn't).

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

#255

Post by d1sxeyes »

dureuill wrote: post #179
tptacek wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know quite a bit about Flock, having been intimately involved in the process of evicting it from our municipality, and I don't think the distinction you're trying to draw here is meaningful. Flock will say they provide a service, one avidly sought by the actual owners of the data, to generate analysis based on that data. They're contractually forbidden from "selling their access to it" to arbitrary parties; they ca…

Except their customer's data isn't actually theirs: OP requested their private data to be deleted from the system. So OP expressed a clear intent for their data not to be used by Flock's customer. We could say that the data thus becomes abusively retained on these systems. As a result, IF Flock has the technical means of performing the requested data deletion, it should be compelled to perform it. This is the same si…

The data Flock holds is not owned by OP.

If I as a photographer take a photograph of someone, the photo does not belong to that person—the photographer retains the IP and ownership rights.

You have rights too, such as privacy/likeness rights, which allow you to restrict what the IP owner is allowed to do with the image that they own, but you do not own the data, and your rights give you a claim against the data owner.

Flock probably have legal obligations or contractual commitments not to delete or destroy their customers' data, and changing that is not necessarily a good thing.

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

#256

Post by shakna »

lazide wrote: post #178
LadyCailin wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that the analogy is that they already have, or can easily create, that list. If they couldn’t, their value proposition would be lame. “We know you’re looking for a specific license plate, here’s a million hours of footage from all over the city, have at looking through it all.”

Only for paying customers, which you aren't of course. If those customers paid public storage to inventory their stuff, then that inventory is their property. Surely it would be inappropriate to use their inventory data to find your naked photos. A violation of privacy even. (/s, kinda) I was enumerating the likely defense, not that it's valid.

"Existing capability" removes the argument against onerous requirements, in a legal setting.

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

#257

Post by FinnKuhn »

tptacek wrote: post #191
empathy_m wrote: post #43

I noticed that the company is glossed as "Flock" and not "Flock Safety (YC S17)" in posts like this and last week's "US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47689237 . Did YC house style change a while back to drop the "(YC xxx)" annotation since so many popular firms particpate / or because it's well known?

I see less of it now across the board but note that this headline was almost certainly created by the story's submitter; it's not like there's an automated process to apply the label.

There are definitely some automatic formatting rules for titles though.

E.g. capitalization or one that removes any "How" from the beginning of a title. When I wanted to submit "How Pizza Tycoon simulated traffic on a 25 MHz CPU" I had to edit it after posting or it would have said "Pizza Tycoon simulated traffic on a 25 MHz CPU", which doesn't make any sense.

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

#258

Post by laylower »

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…

Send it to EFF - they are big in California..

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

#259

Post by windexh8er »

tptacek wrote: post #244
windexh8er wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't. Flock is, so are they? Also, the state I live in has a GDPA that would override CCPA, so it's not exactly that cut and dry as you very well know. The Ring example is garbage. You paid for it and it's on your property. Nothing remotely similar. I guess then it's OK for Flock to be required installed on your mobile device so they can check your geo history for the last hour and that you don't match the pro…

I've lost track of what you're talking about. Flock cameras are installed by municipalities. They're physical devices. Nobody is required to have "Flock" installed on their mobile device. That's not a thing.

I never said it was, the hypothetical was clearly hard to follow.

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

#260

Post by lionkor »

FinnKuhn wrote: post #257
tptacek wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see less of it now across the board but note that this headline was almost certainly created by the story's submitter; it's not like there's an automated process to apply the label.

There are definitely some automatic formatting rules for titles though. E.g. capitalization or one that removes any "How" from the beginning of a title. When I wanted to submit "How Pizza Tycoon simulated traffic on a 25 MHz CPU" I had to edit it after posting or it would have said "Pizza Tycoon simulated traffic on a 25 MHz CPU", which doesn't make any sense.

How does that not make any sense? It turns into a statement. If it no longer makes sense, the original title was bad clickbait, no?
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