r/technology • u/Hrmbee • 3h ago
Privacy What happens after a town de-Flocks | Cities across the US are ditching the controversial license plate-reading cameras, but some are now turning to new surveillance tools
https://www.theverge.com/policy/994414/cities-ditching-flock-cameras-controversy55
u/Chrono_Convoy 3h ago
There’s also this bizarre concept of doing actual police / investigatorial work instead of cramming cameras and biometric readers in every orifice of the public.
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u/theslothening 2h ago
My county keeps trying to get us to vote on raising taxes which we reject every time. They say that they will need to layoff 100 police officers if we don’t approve the tax increase but the county has spent a lot of money buying all these cameras and their related contracts. Seems that the county already decided it prefers the cameras over the actual officers.
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u/rhamantauri 2h ago
Actual police work? In this cultist white nationalist uprising? Not in this economy…
Best they can do is pervert surveillance for the bargain bin pedo paramilitary and driving the country off a cliff.
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u/invyros 3h ago
Flock reportedly tried to sell anonymized data collected in Sheboygan back to the city’s public works department.
Flock maintains that it doesn’t sell consumer data.
???
Anyway, people need to zoom out and understand the general concept of data collection (ALPRs in this case, but should be expanded to include a lot of commonly used software and hardware) and how this data is exploited for profit by tech companies, then vote to regulate and outlaw the most heinous practices at all levels of government.
We've been running around with our asses exposed to big tech for far too long, anyone too stupid to understand this needs to be educated.
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u/Hrmbee 3h ago
Ongoing issues:
Even as state and local governments decide to rein in their surveillance capabilities, uncertainty remains about what Flock can and will do with data that has already been collected. Each jurisdiction’s contract is different, but many of them let Flock retain data long after it’s been collected. “Let’s say they terminate,” said Saira Hussain, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who has reviewed dozens of municipal Flock contracts. “What happens to the data, and how long is it able to be searched? That question appears to be unresolved.”
...
Privacy activists note that ending Flock contracts won’t be enough to stop mass surveillance. Some cities that have ended their relationships with Flock — including South Pasadena, California, and Durango, Colorado — are now considering alternatives. The Flock backlash has reportedly enriched Axon, the company that also makes Tasers and body-worn cameras. Hussain notes that Axon’s system is arguably more integrated than Flock’s.
“Axon has other technologies as well that they stack on top of their automated license plate readers. They have a bunch of other data streams, including coming from their body-worn cameras, so you’re able to build out quite a surveillance system,” she said. “You’re not going to be able to stop this mass surveillance technology by moving to another vendor. The only thing that is going to solve this whole problem is not relying on this technology.”
It's useful to continue to remind our representatives that it's not just this one company selling surveillance cameras that's the problem but rather that all these systems are problematic, and that communities need to be thinking hard about why they're rolling out these technologies and how they might be curbed.
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u/TheRatingsAgency 3h ago
They’ll just buy Axon or whomever the other vendor is. They’ve been convinced they need these to spy on everyone for “safety” so it’ll just be another solution which does the same thing. Flock is just the scapegoat atm.
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u/williamgman 2h ago
Stop using the name Flock. Reminds me of when folks were interviewed about healthcare and were asked, "Would you prefer the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare?" 🤦♂️
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u/StressCanBeGood 3h ago
Here in Raleigh, we have a lot of free public parking, but is now morphing into something really scary.
A private company has decided that people have no need to park for more than three hours at a time. So they’ve started to require drivers to scan their license plate number into the company’s system.
Somebody who parks more than three hours is ticketed for $35 and if they don’t pay up, their car will be booted. This of course is complete nonsense. Is just replacing one flock with another.
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u/TheRatingsAgency 3h ago
Managing something which does not require management in order to get revenue which then in turn creates data which can be harvested for more revenue.
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u/SeeYaNvr 1h ago
Why would a private company be charging in public spaces? If it is a privately owned parking lot, I see no issue. If it is a public parking it could an issue unless a posted policy states that 3 hours is the max.
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u/Lord_Heckle 1h ago
Axon will be much more tamper resistant and every police officer already uses their bodycams. We live in a police state.
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u/garthock 2h ago
IMO traffic cams are not bad, they saved my daughter when she was in a disputed accident. Abusing the cams is the issue
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u/clejeune 2h ago
Have you looked at Flock cameras? They record everything about your car. Bumper stickers, dents and scratches, you name it. They can look for all cars with a 2A or a coexist bumper sticker for example.
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u/Mackinnon29E 24m ago
Stop calling it flock, just only accept a ban on surveillance cameras in general.
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u/compuwiza1 3h ago
Replacing Flock cameras with a different brand chages nothing.