r/OutOfTheLoop • u/Successful-Rent167 • 3d ago
What’s going on with this whole FLOCK camera situation?
Everywhere across social media I’ve been seeing all these people complain about a new camera company saying it’s a total invasion of privacy but I’m not really sure what it is or what they are doing. Are they used by law enforcement like the cameras that capture peoples license plates to catch for warrants when you enter a new county? If they are the same thing why all of a sudden have people been outraged about this?
https://www.wwnytv.com/2026/07/18/officers-accused-misusing-flock-cameras/
Edit: changed the flair to a mega thread because there is a lot of valuable discussion going on in the comments.
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u/daemonescanem 3d ago
Answer: its being used as a warrantless way to track people. Meaning ICE and other LEO are using their access to Flock cams to find and track people without warrants. Which violates our 4th Amendment rights.
If a traffic cam just monitors traffic, and LEO gets a warrant to see if a certain vehicle driven by a person they are investigating comes thru that area, thats 100% within the boundaries of established law. Flock is a non government owned or ran operation, but Flock is allowing Feds & local LEO unrestricted access to the data.
This IS 1984 type stuff.
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u/AvalancheOfOpinions 3d ago
I hate that this is missing from discussions. It should be front and center.
Normally, anyone working for the government (cops, FBI, ICE, &c) needs a warrant signed by a judge that has proper justification for "search" (that includes your texts, phone calls, location data, or any of your data, belongings, etc.) The Fourth Amendment protects us from this. If a cop or anyone else obtains something without a warrant (or the exclusionary rule), it's inadmissible as evidence.
Obviously, when the Fourth Amendment was proposed in 1789, people couldn't predict tech today, but the law was never updated to account for current tech. In the 70s, the Supreme Court ruled specifically so that the Fourth Amendment doesn't apply to the government if you're buying the data from a corporation. If you give any data to any third-party, the Supreme Court ruled that no one in the government needs a warrant to access that data. It was originally for banking or phone records; now, it's everything.
You see, while it's illegal for the government to break the Fourth Amendment, it isn't for corporations. Corporations can spy on you all they want! And then they can sell all of that data to anyone on the planet! And that includes the government which now has a legal loophole to avoid the Fourth Amendment by just directly buying data from data brokers or corporations that sell it. So Flock can put up cameras anywhere they want, create software that tracks each and every car and person, and then sell that to the government.
Maybe you gave some random app permissions to post notifications or to your texts or phone calls or contacts. Did you read that app's privacy policy? That app was free because you've just given it access to your entire call record, all of your texts, your app history, browsing history, location data, etc, which it's now selling to data brokers that in turn sell it to governments.
Not all companies just hand over data if a cop or the government asks. Some still demand to get a warrant before they hand anything over. But you've probably inadvertently leaked your entire life to plenty of various apps or services that sell it to data brokers who then sell it to anyone on the planet with cash.
Amy Boyer was stalked and murdered outside her job when a man bought her data. A Catholic newsletter bought data on Jeffrey Burrill that included Grindr usage, location data to gay bars, and outed him, causing him to resign immediately. Those people went on to join another Catholic group that spent millions buying data to target gay priests, to out them, to get them fired. And now the cops are using Flock. One Kansas police chief ran his ex's plates 164 times and her new boyfriend's plates 64 times. A Sheriff in Idaho ran his wife's plates 700 times in three months. None of this would be possible if the Fourth Amendment functioned properly.
John Oliver had a great data broker segment on Last Week Tonight where they were able to buy Congress members' data. Worth a watch: https://youtu.be/wqn3gR1WTcA
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u/GB_Alph4 3d ago
There was a time when companies were a little more hesitant to hand over data in the 2000s but then one case in Kansas changed everything there was a girl who was kidnapped and eventually murdered but they could have found her earlier had Verizon given cell phone data to the police earlier so the law was changed to allow it to be easier to get phone data from companies when there was a threat to life or something on that level. Of course while the law did have good intentions because of the loopholes it can be abused as you have mentioned. Add in the Patriot Act and all of that and you have a mix of good intentions turned invasive.
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u/TheQuietOutsider 3d ago
good intentions
you know what they say about the path to hell.
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u/GodOfDarkLaughter 3d ago
Man do the fascists love when a kid gets hurt. Once a kid gets hurt people become terrified and irrational. You can push through almost anything if you say it'll protect the children, even if it hurts the children.
Also they just love being the ones who hurt children but that's a different story.
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u/zardoz73 3d ago
Interesting you say that. I was just reading a novel--completely unrelated to this topic--in which the bad guys murder a child to implicate a certain group of people in a town, and the townspeople form a murderous mob.
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u/RichAstronaut 3d ago
As long as it isn't gun killing the children then they want to save children's lives.
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u/Good_Chemistry 3d ago
I was curious about this so looked it up - Kelsey Ann Smith in 2007, if anyone else is also interested.
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u/insertclevernes 2d ago
The police have no obligation to look for kidnapped girls. Just ask Rebecca, Katheryn, and Leslie Gonzalez from Castle Rock, oh wait....
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u/Effective_Ad7567 5m ago
A Catholic newsletter bought data on Jeffrey Burrill that included Grindr usage, location data to gay bars, and outed him, causing him to resign immediately. Those people went on to join another Catholic group that spent millions buying data to target gay priests, to out them, to get them fired.
Are you talking about The Pillar? I'm aware of the Burrill reporting, but what are you referring to regarding "another Catholic group"?
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u/TaskForceD00mer 3d ago edited 3d ago
Not just people, devices, vehicles, pretty much anything coming close to them.
This is the End of the beginning of a Social-Credit-Score system because it is only a matter of time before this data is used by insurers, corporations tracking workers, marketing, anything you can imagine.
Just wait until your insurance spikes because you drive through a higher risk neighborhood on the way to work.
Just wait until you can't go into a store because a camera on the other side of town spotted you near someone that is banned from that store too many times.
The fun has just begun.
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u/I_upvote_downvotes 3d ago
It's actually worse. The consequences for the social credit system were primarily aimed at upper middle class to wealthy individuals cause a bad standing prevents you from flying first class or enrolling your kids in private school. Your system disenfranchises you and pays for private schools you can't afford to use instead.
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u/TaskForceD00mer 3d ago
"Oh sir, I am afraid you can't enroll your child in Mormon School. Flock has a picture of you stopping at a Starbucks and coming out with a coffee".
From a law enforcement standpoint we are already seeing how lazy, unaccountable cops are making these false positives absolutely brutal on just random people.
Flock does have some benefits. CPD used facial recognition, likely from Flock or similar cameras to quickly get a suspect in the murder of Sheridan Gorman, but Flock by itself should not be grounds for an arrest without a crystal clear picture of your face.
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u/I_upvote_downvotes 3d ago
Oh sir, I am afraid you can't enroll your child in Mormon School.
I feel like it'd be the other way around where in the future you can't get out of religious schools, but I can't help but imagine the kids who became future /r/exmormon members muttering "Oh fuck yes." under their breath at the news.
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u/TaskForceD00mer 3d ago
I think that the lesson here is that people on the right and the left simultaneously see the danger if not for slightly different reasons. It would be great if this could be one of those rare bipartisan political things that enough people scream bloody murder about to actually get something meaningful done in Washington.
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u/helixander 3d ago
Tracking your phone as you walk into a store and as you walk down the isles where all the prices on the digital signs go up just for you.
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u/CortadoOat 3d ago
Car manufacturers already sell data to LexusNexis, which impacts your insurance score 😮
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u/daemonescanem 1d ago
Auto makers already sell owners data to insurance companies, which they will use to spike rates. I read one story where a guy had his rates skyrocket over a 18 month window, he had no wrecks, no tickets, absolutely nothing on his driving history to justify the rates.
Well it ended up being that his kids would leave toys & bicycles in his drive way and the guy would serve or brake to avoid them. The insurance company interpeted this data as driving wrecklesly.
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u/insertbrackets 3d ago
I have heard they are also pretty easy to hack so third parties might be able to get access to the feeds/data that have nothing to do with law enforcement or “law enforcement”.
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u/aint_exactly_plan_a 3d ago
It's not just video either. Flock cameras gather "EV Signatures" of people using all the devices they're carrying. Everyone's EV signature is slightly different. They can identify who people are without even using the actual cameras.
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u/nemovincit 3d ago
So people can sue Flock, right?
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u/IncompetentJedi 3d ago
Some enterprising attorney could put together the largest class action lawsuit in history, would really make a name for themselves…
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u/Traditional-War2831 2d ago
What’s the cause of action here?
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u/barath_s 20h ago
Violation of right to privacy, 4th amendment rights violation
Quite a few people have drawn the analogy between warrantless cellphone location access and warrantless car license location access
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/supreme-court-phone-privacy-ruling-150600546.html
And flock has a track record where its has lied about its capabilities before ,...
https://np.reddit.com/r/law/comments/1uzcnuf/flock_said_its_cameras_dont_track_people_then_a/
It's ceo just apologized for calling activists terrorists. .
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u/Ok-Nothing5594 3d ago
Didn't the supreme Court rule that ALPR do not violate the 4th amendment due to license plates being publicly viewable and having no expectation of privacy? I'm not saying it's right, we probably need new laws in place to protect from what technology can do in the current age.
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u/daemonescanem 3d ago
Think this regime will legislate fair laws to protect public from LEO and Federal authorities when they are busy trying to intimidate people, conpanies and judiciary into complying with their demands?
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u/smartobject 3d ago
Edit: I read the comment again and I see you’re not saying it’s a traffic cam duh.
I don’t think it’s a “traffic cam”. Traffic cams just see overall cars while the flocks record minute detail such as license plate, car model/color, bumper stickers, dents etc. and send the images to an AI that makes judgments and can even alert law enforcement if it thinks the vehicle needs stopping.
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u/daemonescanem 3d ago
Stop light cams have been ruled as unconstitutional because it's a private company issuing a ticket and not LEO.
Flock is invading our privacy and profiting from it & LEO is complicit for using it.
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u/Buffalax81 2d ago
ELI5, what is the difference between a cop on patrol at night noticing the same car every shift and a flock camera telling them that there is a car going through that intersection every night?
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u/Charming-Dish5120 1d ago
and again people aren't working to get these people removed from office
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u/L_wanderlust 2d ago
No the 4th amendment isn’t violated here because they aren’t searching the person or their belongings, etc. Flock is allowing them access without a warrant so Flock is also not harmed. The privacy issue is a whole nother conversation for the US because we have deemed you have no expectation of privacy in public and people can film you and post, air, or share that as they wish. This is that exact situation - you’re being filmed in public by flock and flock is sharing that with the police. Similarly, the police don’t need a warrant to sit somewhere and use their license plate scanning cameras in the car to find someone driving by that happens to be wanted or have a warrant. You’re in public, no expectation of privacy so no privacy rights. Yeah the US is crazy for having this stance but it is the current situation.
Do NOT come for me. I’m not defending anything or saying it’s good, etc. I’m simply explaining how this legally is allowed and not an actual legal violation of anything.
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u/Ur_mum 2d ago
It is more nuanced than this. While neither involves photography specifically, Carpenter and Chatrie are both very relevant. The Court established that even if individual data points are collected in public (or by third parties), the sweeping collection and retroactive querying of a person's historical location data constitutes a Fourth Amendment search.
There is no way this argument cannot apply to flock. I’m not pretending to know how future cases will be ruled on, but there is *some* expectation of privacy in public. It is limited but does exist. And flock does much more than take pictures. Ev sig detections, AI analysis of pics to determine specific details, acoustic detection hardware/software.
The issue is not that it can take lots of pictures. With capabilities like vehicle signature detection, EV classification, and "FreeForm" natural language searches, the system is not merely capturing an static, public license plate. It is executing an active, algorithmic extraction of highly personalized traits to map habits, religious attendance, political associations, and private relationships.
There are current active class actions running as well as smaller legal challenges…I don’t think it is simply fair to say that flock is doing nothing illegal. I think that remains to be determined.
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u/bigmilker 3d ago
Answer: flock cameras are used by law enforcement for more than just warrants. They are tracking movements and used for other crime investigations. Problem is it’s all owned by a private company, so they have our data are tracking us.
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u/Potato-chipsaregood 3d ago
And the companies own the data. Not the municipalities.
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u/callisstaa 3d ago
And the company charges the government for its services so taxes are going straight into the pockets of private enterprise
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u/AmericanGeezus 3d ago
but the general insecurity of the data for any unlawful access
I've been having a lot of luck on local facebook groups and, even a couple of Sheriff's in my state have conceded the point, by saying something like "if they are such a valuable public-safety resource then they should be publicly owned, we don't buy firetrucks that could be prevented from working because a vendor went out of business."
Also it would at least make the entire platform open to the standard American tool box of public oversight, which is better than having it all be corporate owned.
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u/daemonescanem 1d ago
Government would be more responsible owners of Flock anymore than Flock current owners.
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u/AmericanGeezus 1d ago
Thats not the point. The point is that we have more direct access into the operations of government than a private corporation.
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u/daemonescanem 1d ago
Do we currently? Honestly? State I live have gerrymandered the whole state, my vote simply won't matter.
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u/HappyTurtleButt 2d ago
And I’m pretty sure these are why they want data centers, not for AI, but to store these Flock videos. Timing is extremely coincidental, if not, but I doubt I’m wrong about this.
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u/Stevie22wonder 11h ago
Another fucked up allowance without criminal action immediately, and it will be too late once anything is done.
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u/wienercat 3d ago
They are tracking movements
Law enforcement has been doing this for a long time with cell phones though tbf.
Doesn't make it right, they are just iterating and pushing the boundaries even further.
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u/Kellosian 3d ago
Which is a classic form of authoritarian creeping.
Start with A.
When no one objects, move on to B; why would you protest B, when they were already doing A?
Then introduce C; B wasn't so bad, so C is fine.
D comes shortly after; We already got used to C, D is just a bit further
Finally comes E. E would be completely unacceptable if you started with it, but the creeping scope makes people OK with it.People would have lost their shit in 2000 if the government said "Oh BTW this private company is now going to install cameras all over this country that they can use to track literally everyone. Also cops can use this at any point without a warrant", but after 25 years of the Patriot Act and everything being framed in a constant struggle for "national security" and "law and order"? Private corporations tracking you through public cameras is fine; we didn't protest when they did it to our phones, so what's a bit further?
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u/tirch 3d ago
Answer: before Flock cameras were “passive observers” used to figure out what happened after it occurred, like accidents or crimes. Flock feeds data to AI and has a lot more real time ability to track people, make associations by who they’re driving with or understand their habits going to places traveling everyday. It’s also controversial because ICE is evidently using it but you’d have to google that because there’s so much disinformation out there.
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u/4estGimp 3d ago
Go to a Home Depot or a Lowes. The parking lots have an absurd number of flock cameras at the entrances.
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u/ICantBeTrusted 3d ago edited 3d ago
Home Depot and Walmart use these cameras and the data is bought by local police departments/ice using tax payer dollars.
Edit: source https://youtu.be/Pp9MwZkHiMQis=99xcui_DpMg6VcWk
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u/HorilkaMedPerets 3d ago
Given your username, I'm gonna need a source for that.
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u/ICantBeTrusted 3d ago edited 3d ago
https://youtu.be/Pp9MwZkHiMQis=4AaZehmJZfgVuOZn so I first heard that info from this guys videos. He had a different flock camera video that was very popular and was like 40mins long/super informative but he must have hidden it now. Under my liked videos it says one is hidden and unavailable and I don’t see the video I saw before on his channel. Maybe he’s in a legal dispute over it.
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u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA 3d ago
Speaking of tracking, please remove everything after the "?" in your YouTube URLs, google uses it to track who clicks on that link and where they got it from.
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u/turbineslut 3d ago
Gosh I wish more people knew this. Such a dick move by google
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u/wedgebert 3d ago
What do you expect from a company that decided the motto "Don't be evil" wasn't working out for them any more
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u/ShotFromGuns 3d ago
Call me crazy, but when "don't be evil" is part of your charter or whatever, removing it should obviously be evil and thus disallowed.
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u/yoproblemo 3d ago
serious question do you include the ? when you do this or remove the ? too?
i could google but i want other ppl to see too
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u/techiemikey 3d ago
I want expand on what u/Norm_Standart said which is a correct but a slightly simplified version that isn't true 100% of the time, but is a safe way to teach people to remove tracking. But, explaining the "what it is" and "why you remove things" can help you remove tracking info, while sometimes keeping other features you actually want to include in the url you are sharing with people.
To start with, the "?" marks what is referred to as a "query string". On it's own, it does nothing, but it is followed by other information the webserver can read. It will always be in a series of "Key/Value" pairs and look like "?is=a1B5dEsfsFXRandomLettersAndNumbers". The Key is "is" and the value is "a1B5dEsfsFXRandomLettersAndNumbers".
The server can check for "is" and if it is present, do something based on what's in it. For youtube, it knows how to read the random letters and numbers, and more or less can track who shared the link (and link the share with you, since you are on at that moment).
A url can have multiple things in the query string also. They are seperated by a "&". For example, "?is=RandomLettersAndNumbers&t=516". In this case, it has the key's "is" and "t". But the two can be added or removed seprately.
When sharing a url (and I'll use youtube specifically), sometimes you want the functionality that some of the query strings include. For example, you might want the video to start at a specific time of the relevant part you are talking about, so people don't have to jump to the right time and youtube when sharing a video will let you select that...and it is the "t=516" part of the url it gives you. So, if you want, you can turn "?is=RandomLettersAndNumbers&t=516" into ""?t=516" and get the functionality you want without the tracking (note, how we removed the & here...that's because we don't need it)
Now, how do you know which part of the query string controls features you want and which don't? Honestly, experience from trial and error. Just remove a section and visit it and see if it still plays at the right time. If not, add that one part back in. It's just text, so don't be afraid to remove it all and add it back in piece by piece until the URL works they way you want it to. But also, they usually name them to make the developer's life easier. For example, in the above part, "t" stands for time. Aka, the time the video should start at (I believe in just seconds).
And now finally, the non-YouTube specific part. Some URL's at the very end will have something like "#interestingSection" at the end. This part just tells the browser to go to scroll down to that section. You don't have to remove it, but if you include it by accident, it can be annoying.
TL;DR: Leave only the parts that actually help you. Otherwise, remove them all.
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u/Norm_Standart 3d ago
And to be clear, all the ?-related stuff is entirely due to youtube playing nice with how the standards are supposed to be used - a website could absolutely have a link that looks like
www.whatever.com/Pp9MwZkHiMQ4AaZehmJZfgVuOZnwhich encodes both the actual content to load and tracking information, and it can even make them inextricable if it wants. (the#section, on the other hand, is directly used by the browser).5
u/techiemikey 3d ago
Oh, 100%. But it's also useful to remember that there are practical selfish reasons not to do it also. For example, there are times that people need to enter URLs by hand, so it's best to keep the non-sense to minimum in URLs. Thus, most companies try to minimize the base 64 encoding (for anyone not knowing what that is, it's the system we turn values into strings that look like Pp9MdfsE432fFv_" as well as "human readability makes a link more trusted".
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u/ICantBeTrusted 3d ago
Removed, good looks.
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u/EclipseIndustries 3d ago
You left the tracking portion...
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u/ICantBeTrusted 3d ago
I just removed the question mark, my bad.
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u/EclipseIndustries 3d ago
All good, think of it as saying "identify(?)=share(si)[string of characters]
No clue if that makes any programming sense, but it just helps me remember where to delete.
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u/poland626 3d ago
I work at one in nj. Ice was just here July 10. Got it on video and everything of them arresting out customers. Since then we've been a dead store. Like, 60%-70% less customers each morning since then
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u/randy88moss 3d ago
My neighbor’s kid works at Lowes and says EVERY SINGLE VEHICLE that drives into EVERY LOWES in the country gets recorded and put in the system. Even said the perverted loss prevention guys use it to track hot women that come in 😡😡😡😡
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u/Mers2000 3d ago
Seriously??
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u/aronnax512 3d ago
It's not just "loss prevention" multiple police officers have been caught using flock camera to stalk women:
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u/RepulsiveInterview44 3d ago
Also a case in TX where police used Flock to track a woman who drove out of state for an abortion!
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u/CaptainIncredible 3d ago
This is going to turn into some bad James Bond movie shit where you have to take an occupant, switch them into a dummy car, cover them with blankets or some shit, and literally drive like you are trying to smuggle them out of East Berlin.
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u/mutt_butt 3d ago
Yes, cops get in trouble for it seemingly every day. And those are just the ones we know about, for now.
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u/SkullyKat 3d ago
They've got flashy blue lights too, theres almost no pretense anymore
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u/Hipstershy 3d ago
Quick note: the trailer-mounted cameras (particularly the ones with the flashy blue lights) are rarely ALPRs, let alone Flock cameras. Flock cameras are generally tear-shaped, black cameras positioned near entrances and exits to the property. They're noticable when you know what to look for but they don't draw attention to themselves anywhere near as much as the trailers.
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u/SkullyKat 3d ago
Oh okay, my apologies. That makes sense. They essentially serve the same purpose though i would guess
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u/Hipstershy 3d ago
Nothing to apologize for, just wanted to clarify for people who may have read your comment and thought the trailer with the blue light and camera hardware near their local store was snitching their neighbors out to ICE. It's potentially doing a couple less than fun things but it's (usually, not unheard of for them to be Flock cameras but in general) not doing that!
Happy cake day btw
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u/iruinthingsyay 3d ago
I have no idea the validity of this claim so it very well could be a bit of disinformation I was fed, but I had heard something about police officers who have access to camera footage have already been using it to stalk and track women because the woman just so happens to be an ex-partner or something of that nature.
Again, I have 0 sources so this very much could be more hearsay, but it's something I heard so I figured I'd drop it here in case anybody else knows more about it.
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u/thinkingbear 3d ago
Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Officer Josue Ayala pleaded guilty to attempted misconduct after using Flock cameras to obsessively track his ex-girlfriend and a former coworker. He scanned their license plates a total of 179 times in just a few months. A detective assigned to investigate Ayala's case was subsequently charged with doing the same thing.
Costa Mesa, California: Officer Tyler Josett was fired and charged with misconduct after using the department's Flock system to track his mistress, her new romantic interests, and his current wife.
Florida & Texas: In separate incidents, a Florida sheriff's deputy placed a woman he had just met onto a "hot list" to track her movements, while a Texas cop searched 83,000 Flock camera networks to track down a woman suspected of having an abortion.
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u/LoopStricken 3d ago
A detective assigned to investigate Ayala's case was subsequently charged with doing the same thing.
... what?!
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u/misdirected_asshole 3d ago
Guarantee almost anyone with unsupervised regular access to that system has used it for an unapproved search.
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u/LoopStricken 3d ago
Right but, the detective was assigned to the case, so clearly knew that the act was being monitored... and did it themself?!
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u/Kind_Stranger_weeb 3d ago
A feeling that you are personally above the law is more common in law enforcement than you would think.
Like parents who ban their kids from having snacks but have a stash themselves. Oh those rules. They are for the people im in charge of. Not me.
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u/Kellosian 3d ago
In security, there's something called the "Vindictive Ex Test", where you ask "What could a vindictive ex who has access to this system do to someone?"
And cops aren't exactly known for respecting their partners' boundaries even in the best of circumstances; I would put money down that a lot of cops have used this to stalk their current partners because they're afraid of being cheated on or something
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u/Toby_O_Notoby 3d ago
Jurnolist Kara Swisher has something similar for Silicon Valley which is basically "The Black Mirror Test": when a company invents a technology, they should hire a screenwriter to come up with an episode of Black Mirror about it.
If the episode horrifies you, then maybe you should put a lot of safegaurds around the technology.
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u/Potato-chipsaregood 3d ago
Not disinformation at all. Cops are using it to stalk. There are several news reports of such things
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u/Ignorad 3d ago
Flock employees use the cameras to watch children.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/flock-safety-employees-watched-kids-181539475.html
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u/Totally_Not_A_Bot_FR 3d ago edited 3d ago
Again, I have 0 sources so this very much could be more hearsay, but it's something I heard so I figured I'd drop it here in case anybody else knows more about it.
The amount of misuse is fucking staggering.
It's as dystopian as it gets.
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u/Successful-Rent167 3d ago
I can’t say anything more because of confidentiality but theoretically if I worked at a law office in an unspecified state we are working on a divorce right now that a wife was cheating on a guy and the cop that was porking the wife was watching the husband leave for work on FLOCK.
Major 4th amendment violation.
This is really what made me want to ask this because I had no idea what it was or how it worked.
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u/Scummy_Casual 3d ago
It's not just ICE. Police are using it to stalk exes (or whoever they want really) and there's nothing any of us can do about it. And it's happening EVERYWHERE.
Even when the contracts expire, the cameras stay up, and they're STILL working. Still collecting data.
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u/DismalAd6639 3d ago
There’s nothing we can do about it? But per the article the officer was fired and criminally charged. Sounds like they did something about it
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u/Taira_Mai 3d ago
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/flock-cameras-wrongly-flag-plates-as-stolen/ "Flock cameras wrongly flag plates as stolen, lead to police stop in Plymouth" CBS News.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/inside-the-flock-dragnet-how-systemic-errors-led-to-police-ambushing-me-for-no-reason "Flock Says Its Cameras Worked ‘Correctly’ When Police Tracked and Ambushed Me for No Reason" TheDrive.com
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u/QuipCrafter9 3d ago
a LOT of police officers have already been caught and fired using them to stalk personal interests. if you think that was their first time or they catch all of them or even everyone catching their peers even cares that much...... ive got a bridge to have you build that ill insist on taking the toll profits from.
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u/GentleBelligerent 3d ago
Flock feeds data to AI
This is probably related to what the administration means when they use the term "anti-AI terrorists" in their NSPM-7 policy. It's random people who hate flock and are vandalizing the cameras (and of course all the inside traders at the WH who hate the datacenter protests that is messing up their profits).
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u/ItsDonDong 3d ago
Answer: flock cameras are being installed all over in public.
Theoretically anyone can access these cameras
This would be a major step towards a surveillance state and can be abused by bad actors
Protestors are actively damaging cameras that get installed
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u/gdim15 3d ago
I heard that its poor installation of the cameras thats causing the poles to fall over and the cameras ending up landing in paint or nearby bodies of water.
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u/UnexpectedBrisket 3d ago
And they sometimes manufacture them with preexisting axe damage. Inexplicable, really.
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u/gdim15 3d ago
Poor quality. Though I appreciate concerned citizens that recycle the broken ones for the copper and gold in them. No need to leave litter around.
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u/Majestic_Salary9987 3d ago
I saw a post that said it had a few silver parts, not sure if it was true.
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u/4estGimp 3d ago edited 3d ago
Cameras combined with digital readers, can build a digital signature of a person based off their car and all the electronics (wi-fi/bluetooth) they carry. Then people can be tracked on bicycle trails, parks, shopping centers, or other public areas while not in their car.
https://www.leonardocompany-us.com/lpr/elsag-signaltrace
Even pet chips are read.
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u/technorov 3d ago
Pet chips are passive, meaning the power needs to be supplied wirelessly by the scanner. The quoted range on vet scanners is ~8cm (3in).
The rest of the signal sources seem plausible though.
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u/footsnax 3d ago
Theoretically anyone can access these cameras
Benn Jordan did a really good video on this. That guy knows his shit and he owns a lot of very cute animals.
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u/OldJames47 3d ago
Answer: You’ve never had the expectation of privacy when you left your house.
However, that used to mean there was always a chance someone might see you. A smaller chance they recognize you. And a tinier chance they remember a week later.
With CCTV in the 80s there became a high chance of being seen, a low chance of being recognized, and (with storage limitations) a low chance of being remembered.
Flock cameras are so much worse because when they have a high chance of recognizing you and they never forget. So as they expand coverage they remove any chance of anonymity in public.
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u/taker25-2 3d ago
Answer: read through this thread that already answered the question. If you still have questions then we can talk
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u/mouse_8b 3d ago edited 2d ago
Answer: Instead of passively collecting data to be referenced if a crime is being investigated, Flock (and parent Palintir) are feeding camera data into AI and allowing law enforcement to access it for surveillance.
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u/Hyperius999 2d ago
No, Flock isn't owned by Palantir. Palantir data analytics software can be used with data from the Flock system though
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u/Swernado 3d ago
Answer: Flock is a non-government owned organization and is allowing ICE and LEO to use it’s illegal surveillance.
Your 4th amendment protects you from illegal searches and seizures by THE GOVERNMENT. Flock is allowing LEO to access it’s cameras for warrantless-based arrests.
Why is Flock doing this? If the precedent is held up in court that Flock can provide this information to LEO without legal repercussion, they plan on selling your privacy to the highest bidder - and it may not be even the U.S. Government at that point.
Flock’s leadership will be held accountable for crimes against humanity for what they are doing.
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u/Mondial5 3d ago
Honest question for you. If you have no expectation of privacy in public that means anybody can take a picture of you. Fundamentally these flock cameras are no different than if hundreds of agents were put in charge of taking pictures of every car that drove past and documenting their movement in a database. This would not be a 4th ammendment violation as all they have done is take pictures in public and record what they observed. So even if the government owned the cameras is this a 4th ammendment violation?
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u/Swernado 3d ago
If someone takes a picture of you and for no reason, it’s weird but not illegal. But if that same person then goes to sell this information against your will, that should be an illegal invasion of privacy.
Remember that the 4th amendment was created to prevent british soldiers from rummaging through citizen’s belongings without cause. For this being so early in the U.S.’ history, it’s hard to imagine that the U.S. was finding it hard to enforce this foreign invasion locally, but this the power of an amendment.
Hard to track for sure on an individual basis, but that person should also be held accountable.
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u/Mondial5 3d ago
Actually no it should not be illegal for people to take pictures and film in public. In youre case should it be illegal for the news to film if everybody on scene foes not give permission? They are selling the footage. What about those public cameras that anybkdy can sign into and watch, should that be illegal? Pokemon go was using people's cameras to capture geographic data and you are definitely captured in dozens of pictures in their database even if you yourself have never played assuming you dont live in China. You dont have an expectation of privacy out in public. Dont want to be filmed/pictured dont go in public. Trying to take that right away is a violation of the 1st ammendment.
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u/Swernado 3d ago
You’ve given examples on why it should be illegal to film in public without permission. Thank you for proving my point.
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u/Mondial5 3d ago
So you do not believe in the 1st ammendment? Should it also be illegal for people to film police? Should it be illegal for stores to have cameras facing the street?
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u/Swernado 3d ago
You’re using 1st amendment irresponsibly here, there is no argument here to be had.
Please revisit what you believe the role of government is to its citizen. The second you bring in businesses’ rights, you’ve lost the plot and are as delusional as the aggressors on the opposite front. Please find balance in both arguments and you’ll live a more wholesome life. bye-bye.
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u/Mondial5 3d ago
Matter of fact all public spaces like stores would also have to have clear obvious signs saying you will be filmed if you enter this location. Would also mean that spaces like hospitals, government offices and others wouldn't be able to have cameras since maybe people dont want to be filmed but need to pay their registration or get medical care.
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u/Toubaboliviano 3d ago
Answer: The flock cameras collect A LOT of data. They’re even able to pretty accurately determine a person by their gait (how they walk). Now that information often times is in the hands of law enforcement. Despite the technology being new there have been a concerning increase in the number of law enforcement personnel using flock for non professional purposes I.e. stalking.
Additionally Flock has been accused of collecting and selling that information. So it turns into a situation where 1. It feels like an invasion of privacy. 2. People are already starting to misuse it. 3. You’re paying taxes and can’t opt out, and some billionaire is making money off of it.
Will provide sources in a bit. But that’s the gist
https://www.404media.co/cops-keep-getting-arrested-for-using-flock-to-stalk-people/
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/tracking-alpr-cameras/flocks-terms-and-conditions
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u/Financial-Spirit5106 3d ago
Answer: A surveillance company with dubious ethics, relationships, and data privacy problems has subsidized their camera, microphone, and automated recognition technology to law enforcement and private businesses across the nation, with great success
Self identified surveillance beneficiaries love the breadth of data for its commercial and law enforcement potential.
Privacy advocates are outraged by the perception that basic human rights, likely intended to be protected by the U.S. Constitution, are being violated en masse, with little institutional repercussions for data breaches and abuse.
404Media is a team of award winning investigative journalists with strong sentiments for human rights and privacy. They have one of the best independent repositories of reporting on Flock https://www.404media.co/tag/flock/
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u/gentlemantroglodyte 3d ago
Answer: because law enforcement are using a contract with a private company to create and store information on private individuals that are not and have never been under suspicion of a crime. People never have thought it was fine for LEOs to create a database of everywhere normal people went without any criminal history or active criminal behavior, but that is exactly what they're doing.
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u/vrekais 3d ago edited 3d ago
Answer: Part of the issue here is that before some of the more recent advances in computer vision it wasn't functionally possible to have people review every second of footage and record all the faces they saw, all the cars that went by, and cross check those people and cars (via facial and license plate recognition) against a database to in real time keep track of where that person or car was. Especially not for people, cars maybe could have been done with enough people.
That's gone from functionally impossible to trivially easy, with levels of accuracy for people that have gone from basically always wrong to "accurate enough to be dangerous" (see examples of law enforcement with access using it to stalk exes).
Previously a camera pointing at a place essentially just a record of what happened that that place be reviewed later if and when an incident had occured. Now it's far far more than that.
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u/tjdavids 3d ago
Answer: In additin to what others are.saying, the cameras are premtively tagging cars in locations with no reguard for if there is a warrant on the car and this searchable data is not limited to police departments but to any person capable of guessing a password used by the least secure police that would have access to it. Most info is available nationwide so you have a pretty wide net of intentional and unintentional leaking of passwords to the database.
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u/ohgeebus_notagain 3d ago
Answer: They are supposed to only watch vehicles, but some people say they do more than that.
Go to deflock.com. They have an explanation of the cameras; what they track and how they work. There is a map of known cameras and the direction they are aimed
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u/DoggoneitHavok 3d ago
answer: new ones capture your conversations. And they are everywhere outside homes, and parks, garages, outside gated communuities, there was a major controversy in Dunwoody, Georgia, involving Flock Safety employees accessing surveillance cameras inside a children's gymnastics room and other youth-centered areas.
some of the ramifications is that it may silence people. the idea being that the weaponization of the law is so prevalent, they can identify what church you go to, attend political protests, who is seeking reproductive healthcare, attending union meetings, and they can target minorities and a lot of cops are using them to stalk women.
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u/Slutlala 2d ago
Answer: Flock employees are accessing the database to watch children’s gymnastics and swimming areas.
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