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US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

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Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#271

Post by m3047 »

jamiequint wrote: post #215
schlap wrote: post #178

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 l…

"Cameras don't fix homelessness or addiction or underfunded services. They just make life harder for regular people." In what way do cameras make life harder for regular people? If anything rampant crime (and progressive legal systems' unwillingness to lock up repeat offenders for a long time or at all) makes life much harder for regular people than a camera just sitting there.

1) Surveillance needs to be reviewed. Even if reviewed by AI, eventually that reviewed work needs to be reviewed by a human if we're going to maintain the fiction / friction of "human in the loop". The "hits" will include false positives, unless the system is overtuned so that it rarely kicks an event.

1a) Review will take time / resources which could be spent on human policing, harming the community.

1b) Some jurisdictions may prefer "broken windows as policy", the notion that they can construct a "reasonable suspicion", given enough garbage (some of it outright garbage, the point being there is so much of it nobody cares; don't need to do an accurate drug test until trial, right?).

2) False surveillance hits will make it through human review and result in injury to innocent humans.

3) Police forces already lack the money / manpower to investigate potential crimes.

4) Police forces already "prioritize" other matters than the mentally ill setting their houses on fire or releasing plagues of rabbits into their neighborhoods (actual things that have happened to me!).

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#272

Post by turtlesdown11 »

jamiequint wrote: post #268
tadfisher wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your question was: > In what way do cameras make life harder for regular people? I provided an example. Are you only accepting peer-reviewed studies?

Single example is worthless. Is there a pattern of this happening far more often? Overall, do fewer people get incorrectly arrested or detained as a result of this technology, or more.

so where are your data sources arguing these are helping?

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#273

Post by Vrondi »

jamiequint wrote: post #215
schlap wrote: post #178

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 l…

"Cameras don't fix homelessness or addiction or underfunded services. They just make life harder for regular people." In what way do cameras make life harder for regular people? If anything rampant crime (and progressive legal systems' unwillingness to lock up repeat offenders for a long time or at all) makes life much harder for regular people than a camera just sitting there.

By mis-identifying them, leading to 5 months of jail time for a person who has done nothing other than be in public. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/us/north-dakota-facial-re...

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#274

Post by Sharlin »

xracy wrote: post #245
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.

I think his comment about "why dogs might provide actual neighborhood safety" is a good reminder that the thing that makes communities safe is "knowing your neighbors." You don't get safety by building a castle with a moat and a million cameras. You get safety by building a community with context that can respond without having to just "react" to the 6s version of "what happened".

Many may find it unintuitive, but one of the best things you can do for the actual security of a neighborhood is to design it for pedestrian and "loitering" friendliness.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#275

Post by IAmBroom »

snerbles wrote: post #262
xracy wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his comment about "why dogs might provide actual neighborhood safety" is a good reminder that the thing that makes communities safe is "knowing your neighbors." You don't get safety by building a castle with a moat and a million cameras. You get safety by building a community with context that can respond without having to just "react" to the 6s version of "what happened".

I'm reminded of prepper forum discussions. Where some do little more than hoard supplies, weapons and gadgets yet don't network and build communities. In an actual societal breakdown scenario these isolated individuals will become loot drops for others who actually band together.

It's not that they'll be able to call on one another - you can't guarantee who else will be around after The Bad Event (whatever it is).

It's that they don't have the basic strength of building alliances in the first place - something every kid is supposed to learn through the joys and pains of playing together. Bullies are not generally the popular ones, but neither are the loners.

To put it another way: castles can't survive siege forever. They are a delaying tactic until outside help can arrive.

"The Dauphin, whom of succors we entreated, Returns us that his powers are yet not ready To raise so great a siege. Therefore, great king, We yield our town and lives to thy soft mercy." -- Henry V, Act 3, scene 3

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#276

Post by anthonypasq »

dmoy wrote: post #164
anthonypasq wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

San Francisco homicide rate is like what, 2x Berlin and 3x London, so Berlin is half a Mad Max?

you think people in those cities didn't wish they were as safe as Tokyo? maybe i was a little too focused on America specifically, we are just by far the worst.

but also imagine thinking the richest city on the entire planet should just be fine with 3x the homicide rate of other comparable cities and 20-30x worse than Beijing or Tokyo. I mean its just embarrassing that you think your comment is defensible.

We've completely resigned ourselves to living in the most dangerous developed country by a long shot for no good reason.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#277

Post by text0404 »

jamiequint wrote: post #215
schlap wrote: post #178

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 l…

"Cameras don't fix homelessness or addiction or underfunded services. They just make life harder for regular people." In what way do cameras make life harder for regular people? If anything rampant crime (and progressive legal systems' unwillingness to lock up repeat offenders for a long time or at all) makes life much harder for regular people than a camera just sitting there.

Biased policing means these systems are used to target minorities, activists, and people with "controversial" beliefs: https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/discriminatory...

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#278

Post by citruscomputing »

rudhdb773b wrote: post #209
jonas21 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because today it will be used as a first responder. Tomorrow a police officer will suggest that these drones (that we are already using successfully) could be very useful for checking up on that "dangerous" neighborhood.

Hi, I'm in Denver. They're already doing this over on Colfax. It's a significant change vs the existing halo cameras, because they use the drones to follow people.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#279

Post by IAmBroom »

FireBeyond wrote: post #199
grimcompanion wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTOH it will provide more surveillance of the police themselves. Humans are also bad at gun detection (sometimes willfully so) and this provides another check.

Watch for Flock footage to be "unavailable"/"deleted"/"corrupt" just as often as bodycam footage is.

Not as often; it creates friction and requires cooperation from others (or an officer with unusual skill and access, presumably).

It will absolutely happen in corrupt departments, or those involving an officer with those skills and access. But data that is uploaded is infinitely harder to erase than simply turning off the camera in the first place.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#280

Post by text0404 »

jamiequint wrote: post #267
xracy wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't ask for data... You asked: "In what way do cameras make life harder for regular people?" That requires a specific example, which you were provided with. This reads to me as a pithy response that doesn't want to wrestle with the ways this can be misused.

By this same argument ANY police makes life hard for regular people because they sometimes fuck up, so let's just get rid of police too. What's the worst that could happen.

The general sentiment in the thread is that this is too powerful a technology in the hands of unqualified law enforcement. In the same way that I don't trust federal law enforcement in the post-Snowden era, I don't trust local law enforcement with mass surveillance tools.
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