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US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

cnet.com

291–300 of 468 posts

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? I ask as a paramedic of 14 years, now retired. If EMS has to "search you out" so does the drone. At least in my County, we actually get very good triangulation info from 911. It was very rare that Dispatch told us they only had Level 2(IIRC) location info (which might be to several hundred feet). FAR more common was people who actually told us the -wrong- location. Car accidents that were several miles up the…

> If EMS has to "search you out" so does the drone. The point is that the drone is fast enough to arrive first, and do the searching so that you don't have to. It's just one of many possible scenarios. I totally understand the argument that this might not be the most effective use of money, but I honestly don't understand the lack of appreciation for the number of places this could be used effectively.

I want to see who is in a location. I get a plant to call 911, which triggers Flock drones in the general area and scans the faces of everyone it can find. I get that info from Flock.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#292
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this doesn't bother me in any way, shape, or form. We already have manned aircraft that respond to such things, unmanned aircraft are a strictly better solution. It makes sense for police and it makes even more sense for fire. An aircraft can arrive at the site of a reported fire while firemen are still buckling their pants.

You get manned aircraft to come and check in before the police when you call 911?

In high school in the mid 2000s in Denver, they had a chopper in the air on weekend nights from 8 until 2:30 am or so.

When our parties got called in, the spotlight would be the warning that the cops were a few minutes away and it was time to run.

Lots of cities have manned aircraft loitering during busy times that will respond to a call before ground units

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#293

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.

Such great questions. Maybe we should answer them before building a massive, privately-owned, nationwide surveillance apparatus with taxpayer money.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#294
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the drones are "providing information" to the police, it's only a matter of time before their AI hallucinates something that gets someone killed. We've already seen AI gun detection services that report things like Doritos bags as guns.

[flagged]

If you give me long enough, I can find something to charge anyone with.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#295

>[1] Would crime go up, down or stay the same if all surveillance cameras were removed? The answer to that is the only one that matters. At least 40,990 [2] innocent people died in the US in 2023, without significant outcry - that is, on the road, in car accidents. People in the US clearly value the freedom of driving over the deaths of innocent people. In 2023, there were an estimated 19,800 [3] homicides in the US.…

To rich people, the privacy attack isn't an issue. We already track their private jets, how is this any different?

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#296

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…

I can anticipate this starting to happen: shoot into the sky, wait for flock drone to start coming in, then shoot it! Free target practice!

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#297
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.

https://x.com/jeffmklein/status/1430876370175987712

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#298

>[1] Would crime go up, down or stay the same if all surveillance cameras were removed? The answer to that is the only one that matters. At least 40,990 [2] innocent people died in the US in 2023, without significant outcry - that is, on the road, in car accidents. People in the US clearly value the freedom of driving over the deaths of innocent people. In 2023, there were an estimated 19,800 [3] homicides in the US.…

> If it can't prevent car beak-ins, how can we expect it to make a dent in homicides.

Im not advocating for these cameras at all, but I dont think this is a very good line of thinking. The drop started before Flock, but that doesnt mean that they arent beneficial and currently helping lower the rate even further.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#299
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving a motor vehicle on public roads is a privilege that many of the morons I share the road with seem to take for granted. If they are allowed to drive then I want their plate identifiable on video from my dash cam. Automated mass surveillance of license plates should also be illegal.

Ah yes, the muh public roads false representation. Guess what, all the roads around me are private easements, all privately owned, and they are that way 90% to town. A good portion of my trips never touch a publicly owned road yet I'm still required to display my plate on them. We don't even have public, tax maintained roads where I live (I literally have to bring out a tractor and fix them myself when they wear down…

You should check on that. AFAIK you don’t have to display a plate unless the property owner (or HOA) requires it or it’s a state chartered private road like some turnpikes. Police may still hassle you over it but they shouldn’t.

Many farmers have plateless farm trucks, people who live in the woods have plateless UTVs that they drive on private dirt and gravel roads, etc.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

There's zero proof anywhere that these devices do anything about crimes. How could they? A camera can't lock someone up.

They provide law enforcement timely information about the location of wanted (e.g., stolen) vehicles. Law enforcement can act on that information. If law enforcement does not have that information, it cannot act on it.
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