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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

#261

Post by inetknght »

jeroenhd wrote: post #250
SoftTalker wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So police departments should have to develop and host all their administrative software also? I think we can all see why that would be a terrible idea. Police are like any other government agency or business in that they contract with the private sector for a variety of services that are not in their area of expertise.

In other countries, police contract companies to develop software and run and manage the software themselves. Putting up a continental drag net to sell to government agencies is something I've only heard of from the US. Nobody is saying cops should be writing software, but Flock shouldn't have access to the data and analysis tools it has right now. If American police can afford to be armed similarly to a small army,…

> Nobody is saying cops should be writing software

I disagree. Businesses have their own internal software development teams.

Why shouldn't cops?

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

#262

Post by kube-system »

tptacek wrote: post #155
kube-system wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

California has an entire statute regulating ALPR information, so we don't need to derive this axiomatically.

One generally has to follow all of the laws, so evaluating what the CCPA says here is relevant for evaluating CCPA compliance.

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

#263

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #93
uoaei wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You may be confused, but the owner of a vehicle is not necessarily the same as the driver of a vehicle. Recording a vehicle's license plate does not necessarily identify the driver unless they also happen to be the owner. (c.f. vehicle hiring companies)

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

#264

Post by FinnKuhn »

lionkor wrote: post #260
FinnKuhn wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Titles should be descriptive and in this example the blog is doing a deep dive into how the tech actually works. So the content isn't about that "Pizza Tycoon simulated traffic on a 25 MHz CPU", but about how it did so.

As far as I can tell this is supposed to catch "How to" titles, where it totally makes sense though. I guess there is an exception to every rule though.

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

#265

Post by jnovek »

rjmunro wrote: post #202
jnovek wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t care. I don’t care who owns the data. If I can’t easily get private information like my movements removed from a database like this, the legislation does not sufficiently protect me. It should absolutely be Flock’s responsibility to remove my data and we should absolutely require it by law. Full stop.

The problem with this is where do you draw the line? If I film you with my iPhone (e.g. you walk past in the background of my video), Apple should delete my video from my phone and iCloud account based only on your instructions? Apple hold the data in iCloud, Apple (or a phone network) may be leasing me the phone. That sounds pretty similar to the Flock situation. I guess the difference is that flock might be sharing…

Are you using your phone photographs to track my movements? I don't care about the photographs part, I care about the "collecting data that can track my movements" part.

I don't mean my movements on the internet either. I understand that those things are easy to track. I mean in real life.

As far as responsibility for the data goes, you're right, it's not clear. Therefore, anyone who uses the data -- Flock or their customer -- should be required to delete it on my request.

That seems like a pretty clear delineation, no?

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

#266

Post by jnovek »

tptacek wrote: post #165
jnovek wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t care. I don’t care who owns the data. If I can’t easily get private information like my movements removed from a database like this, the legislation does not sufficiently protect me. It should absolutely be Flock’s responsibility to remove my data and we should absolutely require it by law. Full stop.

The law cares about lots of things we don't care about.

The law is there to serve society. If it is not effectively serving society, it should be changed.

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

#267

Post by rz2k »

I don’t really understand this response. I thought the entire business model of Flock was about circumventing the Fourth amendment by posing as a separate vendor selling information it has collected, rather than acting as an agent of the government.

Are they describing third entities that are between Flock and the government end consumers, when they talk about customers that own the data?

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

#268

Post by kstrauser »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #255
dureuill wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's not the case under GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, or other privacy regimes which codify our right to decide who can store our personal data and what they can do with it.

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

#269

Post by efreak »

goodluckchuck wrote: post #55
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…

The CCPA clearly violates the 1st Amendment. If you're out in public, then people are allowed to see you, to remember it, to communicate that it happened, etc.

> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This is the entire text of the first amendment. Congress did not make the CCPA. The first amendment is irrelevant. Technically the first amendment also does not prevent Congress from saying you're not allowed to remember or see things, either, though likely there's other laws about this and/or an assumption that Congress will not make laws against thought crime and reality.

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

#270

Post by efreak »

SoftTalker wrote: post #52
mindslight wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this just the routine fascist playbook at this point? Start by declaring that the law doesn't even apply to them, on whatever flimsiest of bases. Personally I would really like to see torts for attorneys who willfully promulgate blatantly incorrect legal interpretations - they're effectively providing incorrect legal advice. A non-attorney is likely to believe such advice coming from a member of the Bar, and th…

An attorney whom you have not engaged in counsel is not providing legal advice.

An expert in any subject matter should not be allowed to provide misleading statements, regardless of whether they're speaking in an official/paid capacity. It doesn't matter if it's considered legal advice or not, the fact that you've got a license and know better should be enough.
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