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Flock wanted to tap dashcams in rideshare vechicles to add to surveillance data

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Re: Flock wanted to tap dashcams in rideshare vechicles to add to surveillance data

#21

Post by bigbuppo »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #17
bigbuppo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police departments until the constitutional aspects are settled, then they'll be cut down en masse.

If the constitutional aspects are settled in favor of people, but current SCOTUS suggests this be unlikely. But.. even it were, then police departments would just buy the data second hand instead via direct contracts.

Flock has already made their billions. They'll pivot to something else, probably budget gunshot tracking cameras that also accidentally eavesdrops on all conversations near by and sends it to the cloud for analysis.

Re: Flock wanted to tap dashcams in rideshare vechicles to add to surveillance data

#22

Post by bigbuppo »

downrightmike wrote: post #20
bigbuppo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police departments until the constitutional aspects are settled, then they'll be cut down en masse.

well, tax payers. Cops wanted millions extra to hire more cops, and they blow it on start ups instead.

You're not wrong. But they' also got the extra officers, too.

Re: Flock wanted to tap dashcams in rideshare vechicles to add to surveillance data

#23

Post by downrightmike »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #6

The CEO of Flock said his mission is to "completely eliminate and eradicate crime in America". I think I saw that movie, it was called Minority Report.

With the final movie in the series being Saving Private Ryan.

Re: Flock wanted to tap dashcams in rideshare vechicles to add to surveillance data

#24

Post by flockingbird »

tamimio wrote: post #5

Fitting the typical stereotype of a villain company, the greed with no ethics isn’t surprising, what’s surprising that it’s backed by “hacker” news.. shouldn’t HN be backing the counter efforts against such company not the other way around?

Why is it surprising?

YC is a billionaire led organization whose founder has written openly about the virtue of discriminating against women and parents, and more recently has written bad faith responses to criticisms of billionaires.

This site is a Safe Space to promote those investments, regardless of societal impact.

edit: to be fair, pg walked back some of his pro-bigotry-against-parents shit once he became a parent. But that's the kind of sociopathic cunt who runs this place...

Re: Flock wanted to tap dashcams in rideshare vechicles to add to surveillance data

#25

Post by JohnFen »

rc5150 wrote: post #19
flockingbird wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To eliminate only very specific types of crime, to be clear.

poor people crime, and of course the crime of being poor in and of itself.

And the crime of just living a normal life without the constant surveillance threat and constant threat of inappropriate police attention.

In my view, these systems are themselves a very large threat to the public.

Re: Flock wanted to tap dashcams in rideshare vechicles to add to surveillance data

#26

Post by joering2 »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #17
bigbuppo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police departments until the constitutional aspects are settled, then they'll be cut down en masse.

If the constitutional aspects are settled in favor of people, but current SCOTUS suggests this be unlikely. But.. even it were, then police departments would just buy the data second hand instead via direct contracts.

> but current SCOTUS suggests this be unlikely

Are you referring to "temporary inconvenience" or some other decision I'm not aware of?

The phrase "temporary inconvenience" refers to a statement by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in his September 2025 concurrence in [Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo]. Defending an order allowing immigration enforcement stops based partly on apparent ethnicity or workplace, Kavanaugh wrote that questioning of legal residents or U.S. citizens would be "typically brief" and a minor inconvenience.

Re: Flock wanted to tap dashcams in rideshare vechicles to add to surveillance data

#28

Post by soco »

LadyCailin wrote: post #3

I’m not convinced that there’s any solution to this besides direct government regulation and an enshrinement of privacy rights into the law. Cities stop paying for flock access? Other cities still will. Regulations preventing public property from being used for cameras? Private companies will allow it. Vigilantes destroying cameras? Start using mobile drones or something. It’s a losing battle, and everything done so…

[dead]

Re: Flock wanted to tap dashcams in rideshare vechicles to add to surveillance data

#29

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

joering2 wrote: post #26
Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the constitutional aspects are settled in favor of people, but current SCOTUS suggests this be unlikely. But.. even it were, then police departments would just buy the data second hand instead via direct contracts.

> but current SCOTUS suggests this be unlikely Are you referring to "temporary inconvenience" or some other decision I'm not aware of? The phrase "temporary inconvenience" refers to a statement by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in his September 2025 concurrence in [Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo]. Defending an order allowing immigration enforcement stops based partly on apparent ethnicity or workplace, Kavanaugh wrot…

I'm referring to the pattern of SCOTUS making up whatever justification they want to achieve the result they want. That and the pattern of being pro-corporation.

Re: Flock wanted to tap dashcams in rideshare vechicles to add to surveillance data

#30

Post by rconti »

tptacek wrote: post #12

Part of the backstory here I think is that ALPR cameras are a commodity technology. They're not defensible by themselves medium term; the market will go to whoever ships the cheapest most reliable cameras with the best pre-sales team, which is a tough space to compete in. For Flock to defend a growth-stage startup valuation, it needs to come up with value-adds. For a while it looked like that was going to take the fo…

Don't they have network effects? Let the locals search the next few towns over? Obviously this diminishes with distance; there's not a lot of benefit to Denver sharing with Minneapolis.
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