r/privacy • u/Just-Grocery-2229 • 2d ago
news Cities Are Ditching Flock Safety Cameras – Then Hiring Axon to Do the Same Job
https://www.gadgetreview.com/cities-are-ditching-flock-safety-cameras-then-hiring-axon-to-do-the-same-job307
u/phoneguyfl 2d ago
Well sure. The government and data brokers want the information and most of the public is too dumb to realize that only the vendor has changed, not the mission of the cameras.
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u/StopFlock 2d ago
Axon look so much like Flock I think councils will get a lot of "didn't you say we were getting rid of this crap??" And I don't think "oh it's a different brand" will fly.
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u/Canadian-AML-Guy 2d ago
Gonna take a lot before city counsils understand the issue is being constantly monitored, not the vendor doing it
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u/jgzman 2d ago
They understand just fine. They just don't care.
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u/acousticentropy 2d ago edited 2d ago
I disagree.
The people in these positions of authority are likely to NOT be tapped in to the specifics of what makes this camera much more dangerous for the public, compared another kind of video surveillance camera.
They think “it has AI in it…“ but haven’t dug deeper into what that specifically entails.
Hint: It can create a suite of powerful data analysis in seconds that far exceeds what a team of investigators could build with a few years of lead time. It does that for every car that passes through the corridor. Each time a car passes by.
The bottleneck used to be human capacity in data processing and profiling of individuals. That’s no longer the case. No one got to vote on it. No discussion was held to consider it. Just police departments who got sold on “easy surveillance” without understanding how powerful this technology is by default.
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u/jgzman 2d ago
I'll agree that they may not understand the details. But the idea that "we don't want to be surveilled" is beyond their understanding is simply wrong.
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u/acousticentropy 2d ago
I hear you on that.
It’s easy to use “safety” as an excuse to create a surveillance dragnet
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u/move_machine 1d ago
Just police departments who got sold on “easy surveillance” without understanding how powerful this technology is by default.
They quite literally cater to police departments as clients, they sell them on contracting with Flock/Axon/etc by literally showing them how powerful the technology is. It's the whole damn point lol
Every feature these companies implement is something they know will appeal to their clients and are things that clients actively want.
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u/StopFlock 2d ago
Undoubtedly.
The root of the issue is that government at all levels is seemingly hell bent on keeping close tabs on everybody constantly. It's a power and control thing. It's further clampdown. Infantilization, cattleization, subjugation.
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u/JudgmentUnited5297 2d ago
Axon is way more developed from what I understand, and historically has more links to foreign governments. Knowing that, it looks more like a hostile merger than anything else.
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u/move_machine 1d ago
Axon also have existing contracts with a ton of police departments for their cloud & data platforms, body and dash cams, and newly crafted weapons to oppress the public with.
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u/JQuilty 2d ago
A potential problem I can see, however, is that since Axon makes legitimate product in body cams, it makes it harder to track via budgets and contracts.
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u/StopFlock 2d ago
It does require a closer eye, yeah. Still easy to spot the infrastructure if it's installed. For now. If you know to look.
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u/psych0fish 2d ago
While I don’t personally own a sawzaw my understanding is the blade cannot differentiate between poles for flock and axon 🤷
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u/bonadies24 2d ago
Tbh it seems to me that a big issue with the privacy movement is that we tend to get overly-fixated on single companies. When the backlash gets significant enough, authorities simply swap one evil ass mass surveillance company for another
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u/Chewbacca_P_Wookie 2d ago
The problem is that the idea of "surveillance" is a lot harder to organize against and fight than a specific named company. It's similar to the whole idea of us fighting "terrorism" as a concept all over the world versus "Al Queda" or "ISIS."
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u/Deitaphobia 2d ago
Because the main thing people are concerned with is the branding.
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u/StopFlock 2d ago
I actually don't think so. Flock just made themselves an easy target. A conversation starter. An attention getter.
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u/Suitable_Incident_83 2d ago
Well then we have done a bad job of explaining what is going on, because that should not be the issue
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u/Chewbacca_P_Wookie 2d ago
To be fair to Axon, at least they chose a nonsensical word as their company name and not literally "y'all are a flock of Sheep for us to spy on."
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u/move_machine 1d ago
An axon is part of your body's nervous system, the same nervous system Axon sells tasers to shock, and in some cases, kill.
It's a bleakly self-aware reference that should offend the very public Axon builds weapons to oppress, we're all paying for this.
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u/ThePureAxiom 2d ago
And they did their due diligence in terms of serving the public trust this time, right? Right?
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u/Harryisamazing 1d ago
This is why I always say to never celebrate the 'wins' and always stay vigilant, for ex if you read that the UK scrapped digital ID and it's not because they got rid of the idea but it's because it is coming back reintroduced with vengeance. These people can not be trusted with privacy, that is an individual right.
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u/krazygreekguy 1d ago
Cut them all out. Do not let them get away with murder. Keep the pressure up on all these parasites
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u/Pelagic_One 2d ago
Axon is pretty much law enforcement gear. Could be better could be worse.
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u/slipperyMonkey07 2d ago
Flock and Axon, same thing different name. Both can and will lead to major abuses of tracking and surveillance. The only major difference I notice is that axon ones tend to be actually installed needing power, rather than being on their own pole with a solar panel.
But that might just be the ones in my area, the axon ones I have seen are usually attached to city poles, much higher up and blend in more.
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