US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology • Hacker News Board

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#301

Post by tux1968 » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 7:30 PM UTC

markdown wrote: post #291

tux1968 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There are always security concerns and exploits. Some crazy gamers call 911 swat attacks on people; that doesn't mean that the police shouldn't have guns, or that 911 should be turned off.

Yes, the drones should be secure. Yes there should be measures to make sure that they're not abused. But none of that takes away from anything i've said, which is ONLY to point out the situations where they could be useful. And people seem to be having a very negative visceral reaction to even considering the possibility.

Also, i'm not recommending or supporting Flock, just the concept of drone use in general.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#302

Post by loeg » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 7:31 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #139

SoftTalker wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They install them where the data show that people are running red lights.

Where the data shows people are getting caught running red lights. Which isn't necessarily where the most incidents are.

If they only installed them based on collision/injury data, and that data identified mostly poor areas, you would be ok with it? Because this is what the data finds over and over. The people most harmed by red light running are the poor people who live in these neighborhoods.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#303

Post by baggachipz » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 7:31 PM UTC

ggreer wrote: post #266

baggachipz wrote: post #43

I drove into a very affluent subdivision this weekend, and like most others around here it had a flock camera recording every car on the way in. This camera, however, had the gall to advertise its presence as a neighborhood security measure. "Flock Safety watches this neighborhood" read the sign on the post, or some such. Of course the residents there had no choice but to accept its installation, as the local police…

It's probably the neighborhood HOA that pays for it. My HOA got Flock cameras after a string of thefts, and has similar signs up. The HOA encourages homeowners to submit their car license plate info so that if a crime is reported, it's easier to identify cars that don't belong to homeowners. Soon after the cameras were installed, some thieves stole a gift my brother had sent me. Thanks to license plate data and image…

Fair point and I hadn't considered that. I just assumed that no place would voluntarily use Flock. Thanks for the info and perspective.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#304

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 7:31 PM UTC

xracy wrote: post #253

jamiequint wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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.

[deleted]

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#305

Post by thebigman433 » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 7:31 PM UTC

zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #174

tux1968 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

One of the best reasons is that a very large % of calls can be cleared without anyone actually going to the scene. Many cities using drones as first responders now report that they clear ~30% of calls with just a drone. This is great for small cities/towns that struggle to recruit officers and have had ballooning labor costs for police in order to get people to work there. Its also great philosophically if you want police to be involved less, because it dramatically lowers the amount of time they are going to scenes

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#306

Post by iamnothere » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 7:32 PM UTC

maerF0x0 wrote: post #121

gosub100 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if axon does it, but the future is going to be mobile ALPRs. Uber drivers going around scanning every plate, selling to police, and helping predatory auto lenders repo cars. The latter is already being done, so it's just a matter of time.

Interesting point. Autonomous cars themselves could sell all the data they collect (like license plates, but also street maps, live traffic data, pot hole counts and locations etc)

You don’t even need autonomous cars for this, many modern cars have cameras and always-on internet. It’s not like the manufacturers care about privacy.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#307

Post by kylehotchkiss » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 7:32 PM UTC

clickclackk wrote: post #269

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I live in a city that's top 5% of safest cities in CA and these cameras have sprouted up everywhere. I reached out to my cities representative about it and he ignored my outreach (nice thing about instagram - that "read" indicator!). The most blatant is one that just points into the Home Depot parking lot. I don't see them at target. It's gross but I think the cohort of America that watches Fox News all day p…

I believe home depot themselves put up these cameras.

Cringe. I'll try to shop at other hardware stores going forward, thanks.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#308

Post by ribosometronome » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 7:33 PM UTC

Cider9986 wrote: post #263

>[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.…

>People are not willing to sacrifice their freedom

Given that we (societally, rather than like, you, I or I imagine most of the people reading this here) seem perfectly willing to sacrifice personal freedoms elsewhere (that flock was ever deployed, the past few years rollout of age gates on websites, etc), how can you conclude that with cars its unwillingness to sacrifice personal freedom rather than entrenched economic interests driving (lol) the lack of change with cars?

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#309

Post by loeg » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 7:33 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #290

whimsicalism wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually allocation decisions are related to actual car/pedestrian fatality/injury counts + trial placements and measurements. Either way, wouldn't you be in favor of measures that remove police from overpoliced poor neighborhoods in favor of a technology focusing on traffic safety enforcement?

They shorten the yellow light interval to gain more revenue. It's an irresistible corruption when working on a revenue share.

You're taking something that has happened at least once and extrapolating it to every situation; this isn't accurate.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#310

Post by dghlsakjg » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 7:34 PM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #198

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…

> These companies build this tech in SF and Seattle, cities with some of the gnarliest public safety problems in the country I live just outside Seattle. I worked for Flock. Flock is a company based in Atlanta GA.

Also worth pointing out that Seattle and SF - despite their portrayal in the media - aren’t particularly violent places. Their violent crime rates are less than half the leading cities.

Both Seattle and SF have lower violent crime rates than Salt Lake City.

N.b. property crime is different and is a much less reliable metric. Both cities are ranked higher for property crime, but still below the famously dangerous Salt Lake City.