Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit • Hacker News Board

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#21

Post by delfinom » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 11:47 AM UTC

Gigachad wrote: post #17

bko wrote: 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.

Or you know, just stalking exs using Flock like most cops charged with wrongdoing have been.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#22

Post by sophacles » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 11:47 AM UTC

xienze wrote: post #10

bko wrote: 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...

> Never understood why the outrage of flock in particular is so big online. Nobody really cared until they realized that it could be used to more effectively round up our precious illegal immigrants.

We care about the immigrants becaus we know the rest of the fucking poem.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#23

Post by atmosx » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 11:47 AM UTC

bko wrote: post #19

cmiles8 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I always thought of the UK and London especially as most tightly monitored city on the planet. By far.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#24

Post by lifeisstillgood » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 11:48 AM UTC

Some ways to help think about this:

1. Privacy is not secrecy. Your neighbours know what you are doing, they just politely don’t mention it, or try to sell you something on the back of it.

2. Almost everything we do we do in public, with our face uncovered for the world to see.

3. The benefits of a mass surveilled world are enormous - epidemiology is gonna rock in 20 years. New medical insights as well as simple stuff like “how many passengers take the train regularly” (not how many passenger journeys but how many individual people will get inconvenienced if we shut this line down.

4. The problem is not you thought your life was secret, it never has been, the problem is what will we as society allow people to do with this new information. At some basic level treat it like HIPPA or medical data - keep it well managed and use in the best interests of the individual. (I disagree with the Chinese justification of “best interests of society - that can be warped so easily)

In short society is like your grandfathers financial advice - look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#25

Post by toasty228 » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 11:48 AM UTC

GardenLetter27 wrote: post #20

Good. It helps solve crimes, and can even resolve general anti-social behaviour. I'd rather have the cameras than have family members die to drugged up drivers, or robbers get away with their crimes.

Then put one in your house, chip yourself with a gps and share your passwords with the government

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#26

Post by bko » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 11:49 AM UTC

ga_to wrote: post #9

bko wrote: 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.

I'm not sure about your exp w government agencies, but in my experience, I much prefer private companies. Much easier to hold to account.

Just as an example, NYC mayor is going after landlords for violations and tenant rights. He has hearings regularly. However there is no enforcement of the law when it comes to government owned housing projects, which are very often not kept up to code and are outright dangerously mismanaged

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#27

Post by archerx » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 11:49 AM UTC

GardenLetter27 wrote: post #20

Good. It helps solve crimes, and can even resolve general anti-social behaviour. I'd rather have the cameras than have family members die to drugged up drivers, or robbers get away with their crimes.

Great let’s install a bunch of cameras in and around your house and live stream it on the web 24/7. You can be a great first case study. You have nothing to hide right, so you should have no issues with this.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#28

Post by toasty228 » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 11:49 AM UTC

bko wrote: 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...

> UK for instance

It's one of the most dystopian western countries when it comes to that, not sure I'd use it as an example

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#29

Post by MSFT_Edging » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 11:49 AM UTC

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #16

mahrain wrote: 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…

> 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.

Sorry to break it to you but if the Feds in the US have it out for you, it won't matter how squeaky clean your record is. They'll fuck you up and ruin your life without batting an eye.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#30

Post by quacked » Wed, Sep 09, 2026, 11:49 AM UTC

I've been very pleased to see the reaction to Flock in the US. I was talking to a younger guy, very normal kid who keeps his nose clean, studying criminal justice in his junior year at college. I jokingly mentioned to him that maybe he could bring some anti-surveillance awareness to whatever law enforcement agency he goes to work for and he said, very seriously, "oh yeah, definitely. I've only gotten two cameras so far but I want to get at least five." It turns out that he and his friends all follow an app that marks the location of Flock cameras and there's a whole youth culture around knocking them down.

I wonder if we can win that battle as a society over the decades. A "traditional" human-only surveillance state is bad enough, but with LLMs involved it's just a nightmare. It would be extremely cheap to now have full automated surveillance over cameras, phone lines, etc. "Computer, send me a scored list of any dissident violations conducted on any channel under surveillance in District 14 over the past two weeks. Cut off their credit cards and send a notice to appear in Civilian Oversight Court".