Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast • Hacker News Board

Re: Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

#201

Post by microgpt » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 6:36 PM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #147

microgpt wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. Fascism only tolerates one power, that being itself. It can emerge from either the state or corporate side, and necessarily subsumes or destroys the other, just as it subsumes or destroys unions, families, friend networks, communications, and anything else that can establish power. That doesn't mean the merger of two of them is the defining feature.

Corporations generally tend to only tolerate the state to the extent that guns or courts mandate that they must. How many billions of corporate dollars have gone to fund campaigns to deregulate, to skirt authority, to do whatever is necessary to make sure profits go up?

That's also the degree to which dogs tolerate unions - doesn't really mean anything

Re: Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

#202

Post by tptacek » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 6:36 PM UTC

KennyBlanken wrote: post #198

tptacek wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting, because the ALPR part of Flock is what caused all the problems here; the rest of it, of characterizing vehicles with attributes beyond just plates, wasn't really problematic at all.

Characterizing vehicles based on stickers (which easily can indicate political leanings) is absolutely problematic. It's just not considered problematic by conservatives, given police in the US are overwhelmingly conservative.

Look, I agree that's problematic conceptually, but it's absolutely not what's happening. ALPRs don't select cars on spec, like, "this car looks out of place here". Nobody has time for that. They're matching specific descriptions of cars to incidents, like, "this vehicle has been present at the site of 5 previous package thefts".

Here's another way to look at this. Municipalities are the primary operators of ALPR cameras. Any municipality that would scan bumper stickers looking for Trump opponents is not going to be receptive to any appeals for regulation.

One problem with this whole debate is that people are coming to it with movie plot concerns rather than understanding what's actually happening with them. That wouldn't be a big deal if this was a slam dunk public policy case, but it isn't: there is broad bipartisan support for these devices.

There are deeply problematic things happening just with license plate pings!

Re: Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

#203

Post by StayHuman » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 6:42 PM UTC

Cider9986 wrote: post #105

They're also getting banned fast. The city level should be the most accessible government for change. There's been over 70[1] documented wins. Don't feel like this is a lost cause, it clearly isn't. If everyone who was going to comment on this thread instead or additionally got involved by going to a city council meeting and explaining the problems to friends/family, many more cities could reject them. [1] https://de…

Trying to push back on this in my local community, two things I have found, below. Hopefully helpful to others.

1) I tried posting on Craigslist's "Community" section, in a simple attempt to reach out and connect with others who may be concerned. The posts were automatically blocked before even being published on the site. I tried multiple versions of this (i.e. with links and without, with pictures and without, etc.), from multiple accounts. Same result every time; the posted did not go through.

Obviously the word "Flock" would be easy to filter on, but if memory serves, even my very pared-down attempts that only used "surveillance" or "cameras" were blocked.

Why would Craigslist stop Flock-related posts from going through? The only answer I can think of is something along the lines of a National Security Letter. Certainly others here are much better informed about this realm than I am. Any other possibilities or perspectives, I'd be interested in hearinng.

I would also be interested in seeing what results other people get when they attempt to post on this issue to Craigslist.

2) So far my initial efforts to reach locally out via online contact channels to the City Council for more information have not been fruitful, and seem to be getting stonewalled (I'm not giving up yet though). In the meantime, I was able to do find the Flock contract, initial proposal, and other related documents using the City Council's agenda and minutes search tools. These search tools seem to vary by city, but may be worth looking into in your area.

Re: Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

#204

Post by deepsquirrelnet » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 6:43 PM UTC

therealdrag0 wrote: post #148

microgpt wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they don't reduce crimes what do they do? Oh right they track inconvenient people

Solving crime is still valuable even if it doesn’t reduce crime.

Bingo. Value is the operative word here. Money and privacy are valuable too, and I'm assuming that there must be some pitch deck somewhere that is presumably good and selling city councils on this. Where is it? What is the value we're supposed to get from this?

Re: Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

#205

Post by KennyBlanken » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 6:44 PM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #178

TheRealPomax wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually the one thing that does make sense: police has always wanted to be able to do this, but they legally can't. But they can reward a private company willing to do it for them, so that they can "ask for the data" without ever breaking the law.

The police can, in fact, operate cameras in public spaces and they have done so for decades. ALPRs have been widely deployed since the 1990s. I'm frequent surprised by how many people think that privacy laws block the police from recording their activities in public. For whatever reason, Flock is getting a lot of press, but this is hardly a new field.

ANPR has not been widely deployed since the 1990's in the US and the US court system has consistently held that the degree to which a technology automates monitoring, searching, etc is very relevant to whether it violates people's reasonable expectations of privacy for very obvious reasons.

Re: Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

#206

Post by infecto » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 6:45 PM UTC

randusername wrote: post #196

Cider9986 wrote: post #105

They're also getting banned fast. The city level should be the most accessible government for change. There's been over 70[1] documented wins. Don't feel like this is a lost cause, it clearly isn't. If everyone who was going to comment on this thread instead or additionally got involved by going to a city council meeting and explaining the problems to friends/family, many more cities could reject them. [1] https://de…

We had success in our county and town canceling contracts, but that doesn't mean they are banned from private land. I'm not totally sure, but it may even be the stupidest of all possible outcomes: they still exist, the cops can't access them, and their only value is selling private information.

But the cops can access the private land cameras. I would wager most small to conglomerate level business opt-in.

Last I checked the Lowes and Walmarts of the US share this data as its locks down shoplifters quicker.

Re: Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

#207

Post by Manuel_D » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 6:45 PM UTC

KennyBlanken wrote: post #205

Manuel_D wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The police can, in fact, operate cameras in public spaces and they have done so for decades. ALPRs have been widely deployed since the 1990s. I'm frequent surprised by how many people think that privacy laws block the police from recording their activities in public. For whatever reason, Flock is getting a lot of press, but this is hardly a new field.

ANPR has not been widely deployed since the 1990's in the US and the US court system has consistently held that the degree to which a technology automates monitoring, searching, etc is very relevant to whether it violates people's reasonable expectations of privacy for very obvious reasons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number-plate_recogni...

> However, ANPR did not become widely used until new developments in cheaper and easier to use software were pioneered during the 1990s. The collection of ANPR data for future use (i.e., in solving then-unidentified crimes) was documented in the early 2000s.

Re: Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

#208

Post by Libcat99 » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 6:47 PM UTC

microgpt wrote: post #128

kodablah wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Meanwhile in we can't even have Flock cameras to automatically catch people who may have killed someone" Hopefully the absurdity of broad scale surveillance can't be so easily lost in hyperbole

Flock doesn't automatically catch people who killed someone. Red light cameras do catch people who run red lights.

No one in law enforcement is trying to help you. That's not what it's for.

Re: Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

#209

Post by 15155 » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 6:49 PM UTC

infecto wrote: post #206

randusername wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had success in our county and town canceling contracts, but that doesn't mean they are banned from private land. I'm not totally sure, but it may even be the stupidest of all possible outcomes: they still exist, the cops can't access them, and their only value is selling private information.

But the cops can access the private land cameras. I would wager most small to conglomerate level business opt-in. Last I checked the Lowes and Walmarts of the US share this data as its locks down shoplifters quicker.

> But the cops can access the private land cameras.

Not for free, they can't. Flock isn't a charity. So your local cops can't get the data, but others can.

Re: Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast

#210

Post by KennyBlanken » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 6:49 PM UTC

microgpt wrote: post #184

kjkjadksj wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traditional red light cameras take a still frame and are triggered only during a red light violation.

That's actually a problem because sometimes they catch people who weren't running the red light, but easily fixed by capturing a bit more.

Thank goodness you found a basic flaw in red light and speed enforcement cameras. It's shame it's taken decades for someone to realize this issue and now we can finally start working on solutions like taking two photos.