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FTC orders 'gun detection' tech maker Evolv to stop overstating effectiveness

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Re: FTC orders 'gun detection' tech maker Evolv to stop overstating effectiveness

#101

Post by roamerz »

ceejayoz wrote: post #16
roamerz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(C) crazed gunman neutralized by good guy with gun. In this case it was 3 minutes after the fact (Median Police Response Time to Active Shooter Attacks) rather than immediately as there were no available Good Guys with Guns due to gun policies. I would never ever choose to be involved in an active shooter situation but if I were I’d surely want to be armed rather than not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uvalde_school_shooting#Timelin... 11:30am: First 911 call. 11:31am: Officer arrives at school. One minute police response time, by your metric. ~80 minutes later, the ~400 very well armed cops on scene managed to finally go in.

Yeah that was horrible and a bad day for everyone. I was referring to instances where LE does their job correctly.

Re: FTC orders 'gun detection' tech maker Evolv to stop overstating effectiveness

#102

Post by staticautomatic »

Zak wrote: post #98
mrandish wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Security checkpoints are the primary point of delay for getting into venues, and places that have rolled these out process people through about 95% faster. It's a huge difference. I assume expediting peak crowd throughput at low labor cost is the primary, if not entire, value of the device. I hate that it's being marketed dishonestly but I also assume most concert venue buyers know (or suspect) it probably doesn't…

> The only hard and fast requirement is meeting the contractual security requirements of the venue and promoter's insurance carriers I think it would be a good idea to create an explicit carve out in the law saying that there is no premise liability for a property owner or event organizer due to a third party committing a crime.

So, do away with all negligent security cases?

Re: FTC orders 'gun detection' tech maker Evolv to stop overstating effectiveness

#103

Post by mrandish »

mlyle wrote: post #92
mrandish wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Security checkpoints are the primary point of delay for getting into venues, and places that have rolled these out process people through about 95% faster. It's a huge difference. I assume expediting peak crowd throughput at low labor cost is the primary, if not entire, value of the device. I hate that it's being marketed dishonestly but I also assume most concert venue buyers know (or suspect) it probably doesn't…

I don't know anything about the devices that are being sold, but it doesn't seem impossible to me that with better signal processing from a metal detector, you could reduce false positives a bit while maintaining or slightly improving the false negative rate.

Sure, I agree that's an interesting and likely solvable technical problem. However, the vast majority of the addressable market in today's over-secured society don't really need improved detection. Concert venues, sports arenas and similar customers buy massive volume and they are much more concerned with faster throughput enabled by shorter cycle time and minimal false positives. Of course the head of security at Madison Square Garden can never publicly admit they don't care about better detection enough to pay more for it, but I'm confident the sales managers at these security vendors understand exactly what their largest market segments really care about.

Customers like Tel Aviv International Airport, who actually care to some meaningful extent about improved detection, are a small minority segment of the overall market. Creating new technical measures able to demonstrate improved performance in rigorous objective tests on the metrics these customers care about (some sweeter spot on the matrix of false pos, false neg, true pos, true neg, net throughput, cost) would be valuable but only to that small segment.

Re: FTC orders 'gun detection' tech maker Evolv to stop overstating effectiveness

#104

Post by conover »

Zak wrote: post #41
unwise-exe wrote: post #36

I thought advertising and marketing materials were expected to exaggerate things to the point of blatant falsehood. Is that changing, or is this company being singled out for some reason, or are they really that much worse than everyone else?

It is, and has long been illegal to make false statements of fact in marketing materials. Puffery , on the other hand is allowed. That usually entails non-falsifiable statements like "Evolv is the best way to detect guns". "Best" doesn't really mean anything because there are a bunch of tradeoffs that go into designing a security screening system.

Right. "The world's best cookie". I think the idea is that no reasonable person would understand that statement to mean that literally, of all the cookies in the world, this one right here is the best.

Re: FTC orders 'gun detection' tech maker Evolv to stop overstating effectiveness

#105

Post by dmoy »

roamerz wrote: post #100
SoftTalker wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the "good guy with a gun" argument presumes the good guy is willing to use his gun and probably risk his own life doing it. This would happen more easily if he's already inside and under direct threat by the bad guy(s). A cop outside is not obligated or expected to put his own life at risk. He's expected to show up for work tomorrow.

Yup agree 100% with the first statement. I do not agree with the second at all. Law Enforcement are both obligated and expected to put their own life at risk protecting the public. That said they are also expected to show up for work tomorrow! It’s a sad day when they don’t.

Ok, but in the US they are not obligated to do that. It's been put forth to the Supreme Court at least once.

A cop can be at the scene of you getting actively murdered and do nothing about it, and legally the cop is ok.

Morally, you could definitely argue they're not okay.

Re: FTC orders 'gun detection' tech maker Evolv to stop overstating effectiveness

#106

Post by Zak »

staticautomatic wrote: post #102
Zak wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only hard and fast requirement is meeting the contractual security requirements of the venue and promoter's insurance carriers I think it would be a good idea to create an explicit carve out in the law saying that there is no premise liability for a property owner or event organizer due to a third party committing a crime.

So, do away with all negligent security cases?

Yes. In general, business owners aren't expected to prevent crimes against their customers. If someone attacks me at a bar or grocery store, I probably won't get very far trying to sue the owner for failing to check everyone for weapons on entry. I'm not sure I'd have more success with a concert venue, but it appears insurance companies perceive enough risk to demand certain procedures.

Codifying that expectation in law would reduce costly and obnoxious security theater. Of course, a business advertising a certain level of security could be sued for failing to provide it.

Re: FTC orders 'gun detection' tech maker Evolv to stop overstating effectiveness

#107

Post by staticautomatic »

Zak wrote: post #106
staticautomatic wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, do away with all negligent security cases?

Yes. In general, business owners aren't expected to prevent crimes against their customers. If someone attacks me at a bar or grocery store, I probably won't get very far trying to sue the owner for failing to check everyone for weapons on entry. I'm not sure I'd have more success with a concert venue, but it appears insurance companies perceive enough risk to demand certain procedures. Codifying that expectation in…

Ok, but it seems like a bit of a non-sequitur to say “ business owners aren't expected to prevent crimes against their customers” when there’s a body of law to the contrary.

Re: FTC orders 'gun detection' tech maker Evolv to stop overstating effectiveness

#109

Post by Zak »

staticautomatic wrote: post #107
Zak wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. In general, business owners aren't expected to prevent crimes against their customers. If someone attacks me at a bar or grocery store, I probably won't get very far trying to sue the owner for failing to check everyone for weapons on entry. I'm not sure I'd have more success with a concert venue, but it appears insurance companies perceive enough risk to demand certain procedures. Codifying that expectation in…

Ok, but it seems like a bit of a non-sequitur to say “ business owners aren't expected to prevent crimes against their customers” when there’s a body of law to the contrary.

Is there? In most US states, the concept of premises liability seems to be derived entirely from case law, not statute. Some states appear to have statutes limiting its scope, such as https://colorado.public.law/statutes/crs_13-21-115

Edit: to be clear, I don't think there's anything actually stopping someone from attempting to sue a bar or grocery store over a crime committed there, but it usually doesn't happen and would likely be an uphill battle for the plaintiff.

Re: FTC orders 'gun detection' tech maker Evolv to stop overstating effectiveness

#110

Post by staticautomatic »

Zak wrote: post #109
staticautomatic wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but it seems like a bit of a non-sequitur to say “ business owners aren't expected to prevent crimes against their customers” when there’s a body of law to the contrary.

Is there? In most US states, the concept of premises liability seems to be derived entirely from case law, not statute. Some states appear to have statutes limiting its scope, such as https://colorado.public.law/statutes/crs_13-21-115 Edit: to be clear, I don't think there's anything actually stopping someone from attempting to sue a bar or grocery store over a crime committed there, but it usually doesn't happen and…

So what? It's not like common law has less effect. "Body of law" is understood by lawyers to include both common and statutory law.
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