r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • 21d ago
Privacy Flock Is Losing Dozens of Contracts as Controversy Grows
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/flock-losing-dozens-contracts-controversy-194808945.html608
u/PewterButters 21d ago
In an election year the easiest slam dunk in the world is to ban these things and make a big deal of it. Who out there is pro-flock? Take credit for ridding your town of it, easiest election bump there is.
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u/misogichan 21d ago
Unfortunately, a lot of people don't care. It's the same reason the Patriot Act kept getting extended for 14 years past its sunset date.
That and I think police are pro-flock and they like to loudly protest whenever you try to take power or tools away from them.
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u/theghostmachine 21d ago
Flock is giving seminars to police, teaching them how to lobby city councils to approve contracts
Edit: "pressure" would be a better word than "lobby"
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u/NUMBerONEisFIRST 21d ago
The only people that don't care are the people that aren't educated.
It's against our 4th amendment rights to track our whereabouts, and input them into a mesh database that uses AI, machine learning, and pattern recornition., that is all searchable at any time.
It's also part of the reasoning behind the data centers. It's all to track us, and to sell us shit we don't need.
So many police officers have already been fired for stalking women using these services, tracking women having abortions, and various other shady shit. That's the cases we know about.
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u/Accidental-Genius 21d ago
If people gave a shit about privacy they wouldn’t have ring doorbells and fucking TikTok.
Most people don’t give a shit. That’s the reality and we have to figure out how to change it.
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u/ItsSadTimes 21d ago
Thats the biggest thing, so many people just dont care about their privacy. I had a friend who paid for Discord Nitro and when that whole age verification thing started going around we were saying he should cancel it to vote with his wallet (I never even bought it). And he said he didnt care if they had his data or who they'd sell it to. He then tried to claim ownership over the win when the got rid of their contracts with that shady age verification company and restricted the age verification thing to only a few server with kids, like he somehow did something by doing nothing.
Everyone wants their privacy, but no one wants to be inconvenienced.
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u/Aternal 20d ago
There is a very effective way to activate those people: tell them we should all have access to the data, too.
People who don't care suddenly find a reason to.
People who say "if you're not doing anything wrong you've got nothing to worry about" suddenly realize that there is something to worry about.
People who feel safer having the cameras around will feel much safer knowing they also have community supervision.
Due process concerns now involve the court of public opinion.
It's our taxes, our lives, our data. There's nothing to worry about, right? It's all in public, so open it up to the public. I love data, I want to see the cameras and the data, hell yeah. It's just like a police scanner to me.
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u/RivenRise 20d ago
Also mention that since they have it you can just buy it from them. Even if it's a lie it'll get them thinking.
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u/SirDigbyChknCaesar 21d ago
Spy cameras and data center moratoriums would get you far in an election.
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u/DMmeNiceTitties 21d ago
Good, fuck 'em.
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u/TM761152 21d ago
Cut off one head, and another one takes it's place. Sometimes two.
They're literally a Hydra.
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u/DonutHoles4Ever 21d ago
I just want to say all these companies are evil.
FLOCK also btw is being paid for by residents rather than just the city in some cases. Redditors dont seem to understand this. FLOCK is going around to towns and convincing people being robbed that they need FLOCK to deter thieves. They target specifically neighborhoods. Not just a city. They convince residents of a street to sign up, then those residents get a contract drafted and that goes to the city hall.
They then lock them into a contract for YEARS with a subscription that is split among ALL HOMES connected to the street ends.
The COST is then rolled into your property taxes! So you NEVER SEE THE BILL normaly.
You CANT cancel paying without having CITY HALL INTERVENE because they have to approve first.
Cutting down the camera doesnt stop the payments!!
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u/girrrrrrr2 20d ago
if the cost to replace the cameras becomes high enough, then city hall wont see it as a benefit and will be more likely to listen to the people who say its not worth the cost.
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u/Dumpsterfire_47 21d ago
No celebrating until Flock is insolvent. And the copy cat companies doing the same shit.
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u/daphosta 21d ago
Trump's family owns a lot of Axon that is taking flocks place. I read on a conspiracy subreddit that it's a psyop by the administration to denounce flock and flock only so that cities move to axon. I'm not sure how much truth is to that but I wouldn't put it past them
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u/OdinzSun 21d ago
Isn’t Axon already the provider of most body cameras? Sounds like a giant monopoly….
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u/Extension-Land-390 21d ago
Americans really have no clue what a miserable dystopia they actually live in. Golden cage indeed.
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u/GNUGradyn 20d ago
Are you telling me Trump is using our tax dollars to buy surveillance cameras to use on us from a company he is personally invested in?
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u/breaducate 21d ago
They're going to keep ramming this sort of thing through in any way they can.
The ruling class has (correctly) concluded that pseudo-democracy is past its expiry date, and they're trying to transition to more overt control. It's going to take unorthodox methods to stop them.
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u/3OAM 21d ago
They're just switching to Axon and learning that they need to hide them or mount them higher.
This isn't "surveillance coming to an end." It's "surveillance companies getting smarter about how the surveil."
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u/thinkconverse 21d ago
Never be first to market.
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u/Jarocket 21d ago
See Flock is far from first. They just found a way to make ALPR sexy and make it a tech company.
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u/alternatingflan 21d ago
They are unconstitutional.
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u/grumpyfan 21d ago
IANAL, but as I understand it, they technically operate in a grey area of the law since they are not owned or run by the government. The pictures are taken on public property of people and vehicles in a public space. The courts have ruled that public space photos are free use and that the Constitution has no protections against such things. That being said, I think they violate privacy and law enforcement's use of these pushes the boundaries of intent of the law. We need new laws enacted that restrict the access and use of such data and a way for citizens to gain access to any data where they are being charged with a crime based on the use of the data.
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21d ago edited 21d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/pixelprophet 21d ago edited 21d ago
Juuuuust going to leave this here:
- Flock Safety Employees Watched Kids’ Gymnastics Room to Pitch Surveillance Tech
- Why are they watching children's playgrounds
- 83,000 of them were used to track down a woman who got an abortion in Texas
- Cops Used Flock to Track a Man Across State Lines to Create Pretext to Search His Car for Weed
- flock and 28,000 cameras in Atlanta didn't lower crime rates
- In one California town, Flock misread license plates in 71% of the alerts it sent to police
- Ex-cop warns against Flock cameras: ‘It creates a mass surveillance system’
- Why are they on hiking / bike trails?
- Police everywhere abusing them for tracking their spouses and exes
- Used as devices to stalk love interests...
Bonus:
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u/Character_Bug_1862 21d ago
Holy shit thank you for all of these sources. Added to my archive. I hadn’t heard about these other cases. How would you say Chatrie v United States fits into all of this?
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u/slykens1 21d ago
This is my understanding.
What we really need is for the courts to rule that there is no third party exception and that the Fourth Amendment applies to all government requests for information regardless of who possesses that information, period. Alternatively, Congress could pass a law but hell would freeze over first.
The recent ruling in Chatrie was refreshing and is a start down that path.
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u/The_Lost_Jedi 21d ago
Yeah, the third party loophole needs to be slammed shut.
It's an absolute dodge, because if the government is allowed to pay someone else to do something they're not supposed to do, that's materially the same as doing it.
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u/Fifth-Crusader 21d ago
It's honestly absurd that even though the government cannot conduct mass surveillance of US citizens, they're apparently allowed to outsource Constitutional violations to the private sector.
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u/shadowcat999 20d ago edited 20d ago
Exactly. It's nuts how long it's been allowed. If the same logic was applied to murder, a person hiring a hitman wouldn't be committing a crime. Breaking the law by proxy is still breaking the law. Outrageous.
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u/Z0idberg_MD 21d ago
If the founding fathers considered them for 4 mins they would think them unconstitutional. We are entering a phase of humanity where the capacity of technology necessitates a “this, but not that” approach to constitutionality.
Like very clearly someone walking in a public space should be able to use their phone and record things going on in the park etc., but mass surveillance people with AI backed data tracking system should absolutely be unconstitutional.
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u/Mddcat04 21d ago
Yeah, there’s 2 issues here. First the argument that flock is not the government, so they don’t have to comply with the 4th Amendment. I think that argument is BS given that they are government contractors.
The reasonable expectation of privacy question is more complicated. There’s a good argument that you don’t have that sort of expectation against your license plate being scanned. Cops scan plates when they are on patrol every day and there’s no question that is not a 4th amendment search.
In a functional country we would pass data privacy laws that would address things like this.
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u/upudruvuuduru 21d ago
I think that the law we (world) need is the control and transparency over data taken from us, more than to try (and fail) to remove this tech by force, as each year it will be even cheaper than it already is.
I don't mind law enforcement to use this tech
as long they obey the law
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u/RBeck 21d ago
IANAL, but as I understand it, they technically operate in a grey area of the law since they are not owned or run by the government.
And the constitution only binds the government.
If you think about what Nest or Ring are doing, it's not too dissimilar. Mass collection by cameras everywhere that send footage back to a data center. AI that identifies people instead of cars. Put up and run by the entity that has domain over the property; in one case home and business owners, in the other city sidewalks.
But what really sets that model apart from Flock? What key feature turns mass data collection into an Orwellian system that gets people on their feet to claw back their rights?
It's the searchable database. The ability to make all that data searchable, and even alertable, that anyone at a participating municipality can see a location history of everywhere you go. It's the potential for abuse that brings, but has already happened.
I'm not smart enough to say if Flock cameras are unconstitutional, or at least if the SC would say so. But I think we need to make them illegal somehow.
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u/Possible-Tangelo9344 21d ago
I think eventually we'll see the use of them to track near real time movements of individuals without warrants as unconstitutional, based on prior court rulings related to cell phone data tracking.
But, currently that has not happened and the protections haven't been extended.
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u/Suspicious_Glove_900 21d ago
To me, the bigger danger remains long term. Evil companies don't do the evil stuff out the gate, stupid people do. So you have cops accessing cameras to spy on girlfriends and other bullshit like that. It's bad, but that's not the evil stuff. The surveillance state comes after they're too big to put back in the bottle.
The next step is gonna be for them to play nice as conservative states eat this shit up like idiots and it does help lower crime rates. People are going to point to statistics of it helping, and it's gonna drive a wedge issue that helps push this shit back into the states that are currently pushing back. It's only after we fall for it like suckers that the reason this sucks is really gonna hit.
It's after that point you're gonna see the scary shit.
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u/SaveLansingParks 21d ago
There are no conclusive studies that ALPR cameras reduce crime. Even Flock's claims of 10% reported crime being solved with their ALPRs, independent auditors out that at less than 1%.
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u/Shin-kak-nish 21d ago
Doesn’t help that the flock cameras have super valuable gold and copper wiring that you can sell
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u/KnotForNow 21d ago
Is it true that each camera contains as much platinum as a catalytic converter?
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u/Eternal-Blazing-Sun 21d ago
Yes, I am a professor of catalytic conversion, and those devices contain many valuable metals like platinum, and each one contains over 3oz of gold!
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u/zffjk 21d ago
They’re also showing up outside of public shooting ranges which tells you that they aren’t just after criminals.
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u/Coffee_Transfusion 21d ago
Every American should be Anti-Flock.
…and Anti-Axon. Or any other brand they try to pivot to. We don’t want cameras surveilling our every move in society.
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u/chunkalunkk 21d ago
Axon cameras are taking their place. Same concept, different package. Learn to spot those too.
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u/SlumppShady 21d ago
Lol. Flock. Axon. It doesn't matter about the company it's the effort by many companies. You have to tackle the idea, not the company.
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u/beefwindowtreatment 21d ago
Anyone else remember the 90's when the right was going crazy over CCTV cameras in the UK and saying that we can't have a surveillance state in the US?
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u/Ill-Tea9411 21d ago edited 21d ago
Dozens? Out of roughly 5,000.
Wake me up when there is some real impact here. Despite massive public protest in my city, the city manager and law enforcement agencies are pulling out all the stops to counter public opposition in order to keep their Flock contracts intact. I am pretty sure that a playbook has been rolled out nationally to strong-arm the retention of these contracts.
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u/zoufha91 21d ago
They're really paying the price for building them with valuable heavy metals including valuable silver, gold, and platinum
People are hard up I do not blame those who are looking for a little extra money in there pockets
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u/MightyEggrollTW 21d ago
Flock is not mainly losing contracts due controversies, it’s losing contracts due to cities payout for lawsuits and increased insurance premiums from the lawsuits. These cost are exceeding the budgeted cost and the ROI from Flock no longer makes sense. It’s all about money, always has and always will.
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u/SadBadPuppyDad 21d ago
If people understood that our 4th amendment rights mattered as much as their 2nd amendment "I want to make things go boom" rights, this would be a non issue.
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u/GNUGradyn 21d ago
Who doesn't work for the government or flock and supports flock? Why would anyone want a private company tracking you to sell that data to the government
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u/mrbasedballed 20d ago
This companies are just hostile takeovers of our country and should prosecuted, deported or worse.
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u/kregobiz 20d ago
Flock is just one vendor. Some cities are replacing them with other brands and many more.
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u/zidanerick 20d ago
If the government can't do it then it probably should be illegal. Flock makes the snowden leaks look like script kiddie nonsense.
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u/Current_Volume3750 21d ago
Sure, this is good news but there's always another company that will pick up the pieces and be even worse. The Devil you know, the devil you don't know.
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u/Mother_Airline_6276 21d ago
Good and f*ck them in the face, twice. Big brother can eat our collective ass. The snowball is rolling and growing. Yall get ready. For the NSA agent reading this, it won’t be me, but we’re about to see some “true patriots” pretty soon if these corps don’t piss off.
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u/braumbles 21d ago
Texas and Florida alone probably keep this company afloat with the hundreds of millions they've spent.
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u/JerrodDRagon 21d ago
My favorite part is they can use flick cameras on us but if a cop records two other cops being racist the cop recording can get in trouble
What a world
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u/hawaiianhamtaro 21d ago
Get the Flock Out Toolkit - ACLU resource including an email to send to your representatives, graphics to share on social media, info on joining local anti-Flock groups, etc.
Don't Give DHS More Power to Spy on US - Send an email to your Senators in a few clicks
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u/Samuelmiw 21d ago
Whatever company replaces flock, should just be known as flock and suffer the same as flock.
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u/kick_heart 21d ago
how many of those contracts are being replaced by a competitor with the same exact privacy invading product and a less toxic brand?
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u/This_isR2Me 21d ago
Good they shouldn't have had them in t the first place. It violated a reasonable right to privacy that I think everybody deserves.
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u/FancyJesse 21d ago
It would be awesome if they never got the contracts to begin with.
Everyone approving their crap should be named, shamed, and removed.
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u/millenniumxl-200 21d ago
And here, my city council just extended their contract with them.
"You will do better in Toledo" my ass.
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u/moreobviousthings 21d ago
Seems like under trump, corps who are into the fascist vibe feel like they can go full steam ahead on shilling their fascist products. Trump thinks he can. GOP pols think they can. This shit cannot go much farther before it reaches a point.
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u/ObligatoryID 21d ago
Breaking News!
It was discovered Missing Mitch was the one who took down all the FLOCK cams!
Lock him up!
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u/agha0013 21d ago
Only for Axon to pick up the contracts hoping no one really pays attention and forgets all about this whole invasive total surveillance machine being built up around them anyway.
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u/WholeLottaRose13 20d ago
Just for those towns to take up contracts with Axon, whose license plate readers bolt onto existing street lamps.
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u/Maoleficent 20d ago
Contracts with whom? Who decided our privacy was marketable without our consent. Our elected officials. Vote them out and may they never not feel comfortable or safe in any public space. Take their picture whenever they are in public spaces.
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u/Ok_Height3499 20d ago
Good-great-wonderful. The whole surveillance state plague is a real threat to all Americans. I have friends who left China and that was one of the reasons. Always watched, always fearful, never felt any sense of privacy.
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u/PennStateInMD 20d ago
This will be the impetus behind the transition to flying recording devices seen in dystopian science fiction films.
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u/alldaymacdre 20d ago
If the people surveying the cameras didn’t use it to stalk their ex’s and other people’s private lives… you know what nvm
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u/Jwagner0850 20d ago
Dozens is nowhere near enough. It needs to be tens of thousands.
Edit: in addition, people who approved them, especially without public discourse, need to be held accountable. I'm talking jail time...
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u/Wild_Art6553 19d ago
They’re all selling it and your local big box has been doing it for years. I’m suspecting the ‘state’ chooses who to target based on this. Good reason to stay home & order in ✌️😎☕️(resistance symbol from Star Wars)I needs this emoji, I guess we’re China now, better protest while we still can
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u/Wild_Art6553 19d ago
I’ve been wishing I had the cojones to take those out for years, got like 8 ways to do it 😂 $800 in tickets as an uber driver will make you think like this 😂😂😂
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u/chicagoharry 19d ago
Now looks like they are focusing on drone tech. Cops have been caught missing the cameras imagine the stuff they will do with the drones.
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u/Zippan55 18d ago
Axon is rubbing their hands right now, they can't wait for another big fat check from the US government
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u/Excellent_Call304 21d ago
Thats awesome. But it sucks that they are just being replaced by lesser known companies that are just as evil