This man alleges Flock employees show up in the logs snooping in on private business feeds for pools, gymnastics studios, etc.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-193593234
If you build it they will come.
Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
11–20 of 114 posts
Re: Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
#12I wouldn't say I am a huge proponent of Flock, especially considering their lack luster security for the individual cameras at least in my area, but the title makes it sound like it's an institutional procedure that the department stalking their romantic interests instead of individual officers that need to be properly reprimanded.
Re: Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
#13It’s not surprising that no one is reviewing usage of these tools proactively, but it is disappointing.
EDIT: typo
Re: Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
#14Is there a framework—any framework, however hypothetical—that actually makes police accountable and subject to the laws they supposedly enforce?
I have always gravitated towards a market model. Force police, like doctors, to have malpractice insurance. Let for-profit insurance companies model what that risk looks like. Now cities have to make a financial decision when hiring cops that is directionally accurate to the risk of said cop. Imperfect but I don’t believe perfect systems exist.
But this goes back to government agencies never thinking about budgets. Modern politics is about marketing a tax reduction but never how that impacts the budget.
Re: Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
#15I wouldn't say I am a huge proponent of Flock, especially considering their lack luster security for the individual cameras at least in my area, but the title makes it sound like it's an institutional procedure that the department stalking their romantic interests instead of individual officers that need to be properly reprimanded.
It is institutional in the sense that Flock and the individual PDs have not put steps in place (either post auditing or pre not allowing bad queries) that prevent the abuse.
Post auditing is obviously not taken seriously by these departments, and Flock could build tools to do this out of the box (identify weird search patterns) if they wanted to.
Edit -- I see Flock does have some audit tools, https://www.flocksafety.com/trust/compliance-tools. If those work as they should, it is more on PDs to use them properly.
Re: Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
#16I wouldn't say I am a huge proponent of Flock, especially considering their lack luster security for the individual cameras at least in my area, but the title makes it sound like it's an institutional procedure that the department stalking their romantic interests instead of individual officers that need to be properly reprimanded.
Police abuse of power in the US is a systemic problem. Your opinion is akin to thinking the Catholic church bears no burden for all the diddling they neglected to observe.
Re: Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
#17"at least" is doing a lot of work here. That's just what was analyzed. You have to assume the behavior is much more prevalent.
Why? Is there something about their dataset and/or methodology that you can identify as deficient that would indicate that the rate is much higher than what was published? I agree with the sentiment, but if you want anyone to do anything about it we need evidence and not vibes. I'm trying to help you make your case. So far the only comments in this thread are the most low-effort reactions that don't say anything subs…
> I agree with the sentiment, but if you want anyone to do anything about it we need evidence and not vibes.
I don't believe your concern trolling tone here - I'm not asking anyone to do anything either. I'm pointing out this is likely much more prevalent, based on the absolute fact most abuse/stalking cases go unreported, so this is likely a small subset of a larger problem. The "evidence" is these cases existing at all. In any case, flock data is mostly invisible and the police that use it get very little oversight. So how do you suggest I get any evidence? Shall I hack into their systems? Get real.
Even in the article:
> Most incidents came to light only after victims reported the officers’ behavior to the police, typically in the context of a broader stalking allegation.
> The 14 cases listed below are almost certainly an undercount. Not all police misconduct gets detected, and some cases likely get resolved quietly. Officers frequently cite vague or inaccurate reasons for their searches in ALPR systems, sometimes to evade detection of misconduct.
And regarding this:
> I'm trying to help you make your case.
Nah, I don't believe you.
Re: Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
#18"at least" is doing a lot of work here. That's just what was analyzed. You have to assume the behavior is much more prevalent.
Why? Is there something about their dataset and/or methodology that you can identify as deficient that would indicate that the rate is much higher than what was published? I agree with the sentiment, but if you want anyone to do anything about it we need evidence and not vibes. I'm trying to help you make your case. So far the only comments in this thread are the most low-effort reactions that don't say anything subs…
> Why?
FTA: The 14 cases listed below are almost certainly an undercount.
I feel that supports the original comment, considering it's all subjective.
Now, you are going to be tempted to start arguing that "almost certainly an undercount" doesn't support the original comment. But remember, it's subjective, and any reasonable person reading that comment and the article could see how "at least" could be seen as doing a lot of work.
Re: Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
#19I wouldn't say I am a huge proponent of Flock, especially considering their lack luster security for the individual cameras at least in my area, but the title makes it sound like it's an institutional procedure that the department stalking their romantic interests instead of individual officers that need to be properly reprimanded.
Police abuse of power in the US is a systemic problem. Your opinion is akin to thinking the Catholic church bears no burden for all the diddling they neglected to observe.
Do you make any distinction between sheriff's departments that are elected into their office (e.g. Jacksonville Sheriff's Office) vs commissioned LEOs?
Re: Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests
#20"at least" is doing a lot of work here. That's just what was analyzed. You have to assume the behavior is much more prevalent.
Why? Is there something about their dataset and/or methodology that you can identify as deficient that would indicate that the rate is much higher than what was published? I agree with the sentiment, but if you want anyone to do anything about it we need evidence and not vibes. I'm trying to help you make your case. So far the only comments in this thread are the most low-effort reactions that don't say anything subs…
LOVEINT.