Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 95 posts

Re: How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

#41

Post by tptacek »

dylan604 wrote: post #7

"the only reason an officer is able to even search for a suspect at a protest is because ALPRs collected data on every single person who attended the protest." No. This is simply not accurate. They collected data on every single car that attended, but there easily could be more people at the protest that rode in the same car, lyft/uber, took a bus, walked, or any other methods of getting there without a car.

This is downvoted (it probably won't be by the time you read it and I shouldn't be commenting on voting) but it's true. I think the underlying issue EFF is writing about here is directionally real, but I also think it's useful to know the ground truth about these things.

Re: How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

#43

Post by tptacek »

owlninja wrote: post #13
barbazoo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checked out the map, there is one near me on a parking lot with this OSM data > camera:type fixed > direction 340 > man_made surveillance > surveillance:type ALPR Which results in "Operated by: Unknown, Made by: Unknown". What am I supposed to do with that info I wonder. How would I find out if it's actually Flock or if law enforcement would actually have access to this particular camera.

In my case the city had to publish their agreement with Flock and I was able to find the city council presentation showing exactly where they put the cameras, and many selling points of how great Flock is. In fact, someone else in my town had already marked them. Obviously, this website does nothing for us, just glance up at any egress or ingress to where you live (in the US) and note you've been tracked. Or feel fre…

Some cities just publish these locations, and in many (most?) jurisdictions you can just FOIA the camera placements.

Re: How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

#44

Post by gs17 »

focusgroup0 wrote: post #19

In my neighborhood (a Criminal Justice Reform Zone), the catch and release of repeat criminals caused a surge in break ins. The citizens organized and funded the installation of Flock LPRs. Several criminals have been caught as a result, and crime is now down. So the impetus is twofold: - Funding provided by programs such as Operation Stonegarden and other grants - Activists agitate for Criminal Justice Reform --> Su…

> the catch and release of repeat criminals caused a surge in break ins

> Several criminals have been caught

The actual difference here is that the second "caught" isn't followed by "and released". The camera didn't do it.

My street has repeat offenders who come and steal from cars nightly. The cops know who they are and have arrested them multiple times, with them immediately being released AFAIK. A million cameras wouldn't change this.

Re: How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

#45

Post by criddell »

barbazoo wrote: post #8
owlninja wrote: post #2

I recently contributed to https://deflock.me/ We had a local story where the gist was the police said they searched ALPR for the welfare of a young woman, but it was actually more focused on a possible abortion. [1] "Unrelated" this same Sheriff was later charged with sexual harassment, perjury, and retaliation against a witness [2]. These are the types that are able to easily track you if they wanted to. [1] https:/…

Checked out the map, there is one near me on a parking lot with this OSM data > camera:type fixed > direction 340 > man_made surveillance > surveillance:type ALPR Which results in "Operated by: Unknown, Made by: Unknown". What am I supposed to do with that info I wonder. How would I find out if it's actually Flock or if law enforcement would actually have access to this particular camera.

There are probably a lot more cameras than are listed in the database.

You could point a camera down the street you live on and record the license plate of every car that passes and video of every pedestrian for a few hundred dollars.

I thought about doing this a couple of years ago when there were a few instances of theft going on. To get into or out of my neighborhood, you have to drive by my home and I wondered if I could capture the license plate of the thieves.

Re: How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

#46

Post by tencentshill »

focusgroup0 wrote: post #19

In my neighborhood (a Criminal Justice Reform Zone), the catch and release of repeat criminals caused a surge in break ins. The citizens organized and funded the installation of Flock LPRs. Several criminals have been caught as a result, and crime is now down. So the impetus is twofold: - Funding provided by programs such as Operation Stonegarden and other grants - Activists agitate for Criminal Justice Reform --> Su…

Cameras with good software work great for that, however the data should NOT be freely accessible outside of the city/jurisdiction they surveil. That's the issue with Flock vs any other AI camera/database product.

Re: How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

#47

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 »

comrh wrote: post #21
focusgroup0 wrote: post #19

In my neighborhood (a Criminal Justice Reform Zone), the catch and release of repeat criminals caused a surge in break ins. The citizens organized and funded the installation of Flock LPRs. Several criminals have been caught as a result, and crime is now down. So the impetus is twofold: - Funding provided by programs such as Operation Stonegarden and other grants - Activists agitate for Criminal Justice Reform --> Su…

> Criminal Justice Reform --> Surge in crime That's a big assumption considering crime rates are already at lows

[flagged]

Re: How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

#48

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 »

gs17 wrote: post #44
focusgroup0 wrote: post #19

In my neighborhood (a Criminal Justice Reform Zone), the catch and release of repeat criminals caused a surge in break ins. The citizens organized and funded the installation of Flock LPRs. Several criminals have been caught as a result, and crime is now down. So the impetus is twofold: - Funding provided by programs such as Operation Stonegarden and other grants - Activists agitate for Criminal Justice Reform --> Su…

> the catch and release of repeat criminals caused a surge in break ins > Several criminals have been caught The actual difference here is that the second "caught" isn't followed by "and released". The camera didn't do it. My street has repeat offenders who come and steal from cars nightly. The cops know who they are and have arrested them multiple times, with them immediately being released AFAIK. A million cameras…

The community got together, worked on a solution, that solution lead to arrests. A politically savvy prosecutor would not easily dismiss an organized community with proven ability to drive results.

So yes, the camera didn't do it, but it helped.

Re: How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

#49

Post by anigbrowl »

nonethewiser wrote: post #30
comrh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Criminal Justice Reform --> Surge in crime That's a big assumption considering crime rates are already at lows

>In my neighborhood (a Criminal Justice Reform Zone), the catch and release of repeat criminals caused a surge in break ins.

That doesn't validate the causal claim quoted above.

Re: How Cops Are Using Flock's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

#50

Post by anigbrowl »

dylan604 wrote: post #7

"the only reason an officer is able to even search for a suspect at a protest is because ALPRs collected data on every single person who attended the protest." No. This is simply not accurate. They collected data on every single car that attended, but there easily could be more people at the protest that rode in the same car, lyft/uber, took a bus, walked, or any other methods of getting there without a car.

Fair, but let's be realistic about the fact that it's also easy for cops to get cellphone tower and location data if they feel like doing correlations. If they tailor their request to the date and area around a protest this would be sufficiently 'narrowly tailored' for many judges to just give them a warrant.
Post reply on HN