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US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

cnet.com

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Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#171

Post by pc86 »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #154
nemomarx wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really doesn't seem like the courts agree that you have a right to travel via car without a visible plate.

The courts made polygraphs submittable legal evidence used to convict people, and still use them on people under supervision (because lesser standards apply). Precedent is often crap and wrong until someone can find a good case paired with good lawyers to rectify. Edit: Throttled so editing to reply Precedent is randomly set by whoever gets there first often with a random case and a defendant with zero funds desperat…

I agree with you generally but taken to the extreme this argument very easily goes to "precedents I agree with should be venerated because they're precedents and precedents I disagree with are wrong" silliness.

"Precedent is often crap" isn't really the basis for any cohesive judicial philosophy or legal thought process.

I'm not aware of any precedent anywhere that approaches "ALPRs violate 4A" territory, it's when other stuff happens that's beyond simply "$lp_id was seen by $camera on $datetime" that I've seen courts start to talk about reasonableness and privacy.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#172

Post by chaps »

jonas21 wrote: post #146
diogenes_atx wrote: post #109

It seems like this article buried the best lede of the story on paragraph ten, which explains Flock's new business of surveillance drones launched in response to 911 calls (and also presumably triggered by other alerts configured by police and private businesses). > Flock has recently expanded into other technologies... Most concerning are the latest Flock drones equipped with high-powered cameras. Flock's "Drone as…

This is much less concerning to me than mass surveillance. If someone calls 911 and you need to send a first responder, why not send a drone to get there faster while a person is on their way?

I'm sorry but, in what way is a swarm of surveillance drones NOT a mass surveillance system?

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#173

Post by alephnerd »

asadotzler wrote: post #161
waNpyt-menrew wrote: post #20

[flagged]

[flagged]

You need the carrot and the stick. There's a reason the QoL in urban areas in countries with significantly draconian enforcement like Singapore, Japan, and South Korea is significantly higher peer cities in North America and Western Europe.

Cleanliness and order as a cultural norm only arose because police in Singapore, Japan, and South Korea are very fine and enforcement happy.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#174

Post by zoklet-enjoyer »

tux1968 wrote: post #170
zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then what? Hover over me as I'm dying?

Yes. If you called from your cell phone while on foot or in your car, the drone can find your exact location and hover over you until help arrives, quicker than if EMS has to search you out themselves.

Ok. I live in a small, flat city with few trees. So why did my police department buy these?

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#175

Post by oooyay »

piperswe wrote: post #153
oooyay wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both of these camera systems also usually come with a kangaroo civil court of sorts. Last time I looked at red light camera distribution in Texas it was also fairly obvious that they were only installing them in poorer areas. These systems were largely disliked bipartisanly because of those factors.

Aren’t red light cameras unenforceable in Texas?

They are potentially now, but when I lived there (~a decade ago) they were not and this was the battle we were fighting as neighborhoods and communities. At the height of it they couldn't take your drivers license but the company could file an injunction preventing you from renewing your drivers license over civil penalties.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#177

Post by iwontberude »

diogenes_atx wrote: post #109

It seems like this article buried the best lede of the story on paragraph ten, which explains Flock's new business of surveillance drones launched in response to 911 calls (and also presumably triggered by other alerts configured by police and private businesses). > Flock has recently expanded into other technologies... Most concerning are the latest Flock drones equipped with high-powered cameras. Flock's "Drone as…

Thank you for finding this nugget, I really only read HN comments and rarely the source material. You all have been my LLM summary for a decade at least.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#178

Post by schlap »

These companies build this tech in SF and Seattle, cities with some of the gnarliest public safety problems in the country, then turn around and sell it to smaller towns where it does more harm than good.

Most places in America don't have problems that surveillance solves. They have problems they already know about and won't act on. Cameras don't fix homelessness or addiction or underfunded services. They just make life harder for regular people.

But that's the whole appeal for bureaucrats. Buying a product looks like doing something without having to do any of the actual work.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#179

Post by kgwxd »

devin wrote: post #107
gorgonical wrote: post #21

Musician-turning-tech anarchist (?) Benn Jordan is making a very interesting series of videos about Flock cameras, their poor safety, and their gray-area interfacing with local governments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMIwNiwQewQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB0gr7Fh6lY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1-uiUlHTo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp9MwZkHiMQ I recommend them.

Benn is the best. His most recent video is about Ring cameras.

And Data center noise pollution before that. It's the only channel I subscribe to knowing full well every video is going to infuriate me.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#180

Post by alephnerd »

AlBugdy wrote: post #55

Non-US citizens - what's the situation with cameras in public spaces where you live? In my town every 2nd hour or building entrance has a private camera pointed at the street. It's very depressing because the cops don't care - I've asked 2 in a patrol car when there was a mild case of vandalism I witnessed. Technically it's illegal, but nothing happens. The public cameras are on intersection and some bus stops. Too m…

Japan is exporting it's AI-enhanced crime prediction platform across LatAm after successfully deploying it in Tokyo [0]. Japan is doing similar work to analyze financial transactions [1]. South Korea has also deployed a similar surveillance platform called Dejaview [2]. Even Finland has been deploying surveillance camera fusion centers [3]

The brutal reality is everyone is doing this and there's nothing you can do about it. National Security trumps all other concerns (even the GDPR exempts governments who argue their data collection is done for National Security reasons), especially in a world as unstable as today.

[0] - https://www.japan.go.jp/kizuna/2024/06/japans_ai-based_crime...

[1] - https://www.tc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/ai1ec_event/10769/

[2] - https://m.blog.naver.com/mtnews_net/223775186368

[3] - https://poliisi.fi/en/camera-surveillance-system

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