Why are Flock employees watching our children? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why are Flock employees watching our children?

#41

Post by superfrank » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 9:43 PM UTC

tclancy wrote: post #31

superfrank wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FBI. This sounds like a CJIS violation

Buddy, I have some awful news. On the plus side, you can email the FBI director at his personal email to try to get him on the case.

You're being snide, but I have first hand experience in this area. If random Flock employees can just pull up production data on a whim without being properly vetted, agencies, states, and the FBI will take this pretty seriously.

They don't take it seriously because of some moral, "We care about your privacy" stance. They take it seriously because if there's something that makes them look bad in there, they want to be able to control the narrative. If a Flock camera catches and officer doing something they shouldn't be doing, the agency/FBI doesn't want a disgruntled Flock employee to be able to sign in and grab that video and give it to the news.

Re: Why are Flock employees watching our children?

#42

Post by john_strinlai » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 9:45 PM UTC

mixdup wrote: post #38

john_strinlai wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

perhaps by setting up a dedicated "demo feed”, rather than access the cameras of live customers, like every other product that i have sat through a demo for can you imagine sales force or dynamics poking around some random company's live data during a demo to some other company?

access to every camera on the system is the selling point

"our employees can watch any camera at any time" is not one of their selling points.

Re: Why are Flock employees watching our children?

#43

Post by damnesian » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC

If they are skeezing on adults at the pool and in the gym, you know they are on... everyone.

Re: Why are Flock employees watching our children?

#44

Post by briandear » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 9:56 PM UTC

Bender wrote: post #4

Why is there a flock camera indoors at a school in the first place? Are the schools supposed to be putting video and audio footage of children on 3rd party storage platforms? Are the parents aware of this? Perhaps PTA meetings should discuss. That seems like something that should be using close circuit PoE cameras to local NVR's with on-prem encrypted storage with a retention policy if there must be cameras. Encrypte…

PTA isn’t the place. The school board is.

Re: Why are Flock employees watching our children?

#45

Post by themafia » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 10:02 PM UTC

tclancy wrote: post #30

john_strinlai wrote: post #8

just when you thought it was bad, it gets worse. why do sales employees have access (or ability to request access) to camera feeds at all? i would like to know what other cameras adam snow, bob carter, cameran whiteman view regularly. "search him hard drive" as the kids say. (p.s. https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/flock-safety , sadly the "latest news" section does not have "flock sales employees caught watching…

How else would they sell to additional customers if they couldn't demo random video feeds from all over?

I've had a few sales reps do this for products they're trying to sell us. In front of me, they've opened their laptop, with no password, then used some remote access solution to access another customers equipment, and then demonstrate functions on it.

I made a rule. If you do this I cannot possibly trust you. I will never buy your products.

It's insane to me.

Re: Why are Flock employees watching our children?

#46

Post by dredmorbius » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 10:16 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #28

rcoveson wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm happy to say that I would be fired if I did this, thought this, or wrote this comment. EDIT: Parent used to say "it's common for salespeople to log in to customer environments to show potential customers what the product looks like with actual data in it."

You would be fired if you had a thought?

Root-level comment has been edited as noted by respondant lynndotpy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47785027> and original author Geee https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47785316>.

Re: Why are Flock employees watching our children?

#47

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 10:23 PM UTC

Bender wrote: post #4

Why is there a flock camera indoors at a school in the first place? Are the schools supposed to be putting video and audio footage of children on 3rd party storage platforms? Are the parents aware of this? Perhaps PTA meetings should discuss. That seems like something that should be using close circuit PoE cameras to local NVR's with on-prem encrypted storage with a retention policy if there must be cameras. Encrypte…

[deleted]

Re: Why are Flock employees watching our children?

#48

Post by Bender » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 10:27 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #44

Bender wrote: post #4

Why is there a flock camera indoors at a school in the first place? Are the schools supposed to be putting video and audio footage of children on 3rd party storage platforms? Are the parents aware of this? Perhaps PTA meetings should discuss. That seems like something that should be using close circuit PoE cameras to local NVR's with on-prem encrypted storage with a retention policy if there must be cameras. Encrypte…

PTA isn’t the place. The school board is.

PTA isn’t the place. The school board is.

Well I would still want all the parents to be in the loop even if many won't care.

Also:

- Yup let the board know.

- Notify all biker clubs in North America that explicitly protect children.

- Notify the local Sheriff.

- Notify Chris Hansen to keep an eye on Bob.

Re: Why are Flock employees watching our children?

#49

Post by therobots927 » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 10:29 PM UTC

fakedang wrote: post #14

josefritzishere wrote: post #5

Flock is so wantonly irresponsible. Their security focus is borderline non-existent. This sector desperately needs to be regulated.

> Flock is so wantonly irresponsible. Their security focus is borderline non-existent. This sector desperately needs to be regulated. Like literally every other YC company lol.

[flagged]

Re: Why are Flock employees watching our children?

#50

Post by iAMkenough » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 10:57 PM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #20

Bender wrote: post #4

Why is there a flock camera indoors at a school in the first place? Are the schools supposed to be putting video and audio footage of children on 3rd party storage platforms? Are the parents aware of this? Perhaps PTA meetings should discuss. That seems like something that should be using close circuit PoE cameras to local NVR's with on-prem encrypted storage with a retention policy if there must be cameras. Encrypte…

The main reason that organizations choose commercially managed solutions is because they don't have local expertise or staff to do things themselves. I do agree that on-prem solutions are better, but Zoneminder is probably not a great option. Besides being old and clunky, it also isn't anywhere near a complete solution, and the IP cameras people often choose to connect to them are often security nightmares. There are…

That and paying to offload legal liability to a vendor.

Lots of great, free, widely adopted open source technology solutions aren't adopted by public sector because their legal staff won't accept the liability of not having a paid contract that makes guarantees. Great use of tax dollars.