Flock's 130,000 Cameras: Surveillance with No Exit
Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
Flock, a surveillance company with 130,000 cameras monitoring U.S. streets, frames privacy as a trade-off for safety, echoing post-9/11 rhetoric. This New Yorker piece examines how the company's pitch normalizes constant surveillance, leaving citizens with no real exit from being watched.
The company, which has a hundred and thirty thousand cameras monitoring the streets of the U.S., frames privacy as a worthwhile trade-off for safety and security, echoing the language of the post-9/11 surveillance boom.
- furyg3
It's pretty clear to be that governments shouldn't be able to 'subcontract' their way out of the limits placed on them via the constitution.
Thankfully the supreme court seems to agree here in two ways:
1) Just because a third party (Google in Chatrie case but Flock here) collects the data and the government requests it from them, doesn't mean that that isn't a 'search' which requires a warrant ("obtaining someone's cell-phone location history from Google constitutes a Fourth Amendment search.")
2) Delegating "searches" to a private party isn't permitted if they are acting as an "instrument or agent of the Government" (Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Association (1989) - also cited in Chatrie).
In the Google case, users have a private relationship with Google where they elect to let Google track them and retain their information... but when the Police ask for that information it's a 'search' and requires a specific warrant.
In the Flock case the entire REASON the cameras are there is the the government (Police or local municipality) has contracted Flock to surveil the public. Asking flock for the whereabouts of a specific person seems like it should likewise require a warrant. That's inherently different than a crime being reported and then going to dig up a video from the area from Flock - which is different than seeing someone in that video and asking Flock to find every time they've been captured by any Flock camera anywhere... that would seem to be a 'search' and w […]
- naz
Tangential but why do articles about Flock never have (YC S17) in the title like articles about other YC companies?
- ghm2199
Perhaps its time that YC mentioned explicitly that if they are going to fund a company which holds specific PII data(i would include precise location history to start with) they would have to guarantee:
1. An erase-me feature if they gained over say some X unique/active users.
2. Disclose to their best legal abilities on warrants served in the countries that allow such disclosure. Allow for strong whistle blower protection if warrantless wiretapping becomes a thing.
- gblargg
At the very least they need to make public accessible all data collected about all employees and owners of Flock, and everyone in government agencies that contract with Flock. This means we can see all photos and videos of these people, every trip they make, etc. All searchable with AI, with no audit trail (just like it is for government agencies).
- beams_of_light
We need to keep our surveillance of the surveillance state broad. There’s a lot of focus on Flock right now (rightfully so), but they are merely a single player in the privatized surveillance state architecture.
Palantir, Anduril, telcos, and more are contributing to the erosion of our privacy.
It’s been 2 decades since we learned about the secret NSA room at AT&T. 13 years since the Snowden revelations. This is not new and we need to be vigilant.
- canelonesdeverd
A bit concerning how some people in this thread will bend over backwards to defend mass surveillance. Not surprising given who owns the board, but still.
- afarah1
They want to make money. Their buyers want a closely surveilled world with no exits.
- pseudolus
- cm2012
Fundamentally this is silly because Flock only tracks cars and not individual people. It doesn't do facial recognition surveillance. Society decided a long time ago that driving is a privilege that can be regulated in a variety of ways.
- afishisafish
Relevant Def Con talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcK-TDmzshc
DEF CON 34 - ESP32 as counter-surveillance platform - Cybertiger, Colonel Panic, The Wrew