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Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

newyorker.com

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Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#11
post #4

I was surprised to learn that many countries have what amounts to a flock equivalent. UK for instance has a National ANPR Service w 12k fixed cameras and 90-100m plates read a day. They also store it much longer. Never understood why the outrage of flock in particular is so big online. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-anpr-ser...

The US isn't the UK or China and different cultures deem different things as acceptable. The UK for example is also a monarchy, which would rial up people in the US if proposed there.

Additionally the trust that the government uses these cameras as intended is apparently higher in the UK than the trust of Americans that Flock will not misuse their surveillance technology.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#12
post #9
post #4

I was surprised to learn that many countries have what amounts to a flock equivalent. UK for instance has a National ANPR Service w 12k fixed cameras and 90-100m plates read a day. They also store it much longer. Never understood why the outrage of flock in particular is so big online. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-anpr-ser...

Because Flock is privately owned while ANPR seems to my cursory research to be government owned. And we all know what private corporations do to peoples data.

Yes, people pretend to not understand the difference.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#15
post #3

Already a reality in mainland China, which is a country with very little street crime, grafitti, vandalism etc.

I've been to many places in Italy that have scary much CCTV.

A bunch of CCTV is one thing. If the police have to come and knock on each business owner's door to ask "hey, you got some footage from 2 days ago, someone was shot in the area", that's fine with me.

But what's not fine is that capability in a fully automated, fully remotely accessible way, because that openly invites abuse of all kinds.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#16
post #3

Already a reality in mainland China, which is a country with very little street crime, grafitti, vandalism etc.

>China, which is a country with very little street crime, grafitti, vandalism etc

And very little ability for anyone or any group of people from any walk of life to resist getting screwed by the government if the government chooses to screw them.

The long term cost of putting locks on doors and bars on windows and all the other things that need to be done to deter small scale crime is peanuts compared to the cost of giving up the ability to disobey the government and work counter to the government with a low likelihood of being caught so long as one's profile is low.

I know that by putting it so plainly I'm gonna piss off a lot of people and draw the ire of many who want to see their favorite rules enforces with an iron fist at low cost. I don't care. I have judged those people to have bad ideas and bad morals and they are fundamentally bad people so long as they maintain them.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#17
post #4

I was surprised to learn that many countries have what amounts to a flock equivalent. UK for instance has a National ANPR Service w 12k fixed cameras and 90-100m plates read a day. They also store it much longer. Never understood why the outrage of flock in particular is so big online. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-anpr-ser...

Flock became a controversy when it was being used for ICE raids and tracking people who got abortions rather than its original stated purpose of finding stolen cars.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#18
post #4

I was surprised to learn that many countries have what amounts to a flock equivalent. UK for instance has a National ANPR Service w 12k fixed cameras and 90-100m plates read a day. They also store it much longer. Never understood why the outrage of flock in particular is so big online. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-anpr-ser...

Yes, but in that very link it explains how they work with the public to establish some trust?

"Any current issues of public concern?

It is recognised the extent of the UK network is a privacy concern and the scale of that network is likely to remain so for...

The NPCC ANPR lead has established an Independent Advisory Group (IAG) chaired by the Surveillance Camera Commissioner (SCC), with a broad representation from civil society and other..."

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#19
post #6
post #4

I was surprised to learn that many countries have what amounts to a flock equivalent. UK for instance has a National ANPR Service w 12k fixed cameras and 90-100m plates read a day. They also store it much longer. Never understood why the outrage of flock in particular is so big online. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-anpr-ser...

The UK has been a surveillance state for decades. Heck you can’t even watch television without going on a register and inspectors coming to your door verifying your TV paperwork is in order. Imagine trying that in the US! This sort of thing is just starting more broadly in the US and Americans are not happy about it. It’s the new political hot potato where behind the scenes they’re pressured to support it but publicl…

I never thought of UK as a police state. How about Netherlands w a similar program? Non watchlist plates are kept for 28 days compared to most flock implementations that keep for 7

https://www.politie.nl/informatie/waar-staan-anpr-cameras.ht...

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