This map of Flock cameras[0] is pretty neat. It actually utilizes OpenStreetMap data. It was controversial but at some point in the last decade OSM decided to allow annotating surveillance cameras. You can add all sorts of characteristics including what they're mounted to and which direction they're facing. As well as the manufacturer which is what that map is based on.
The open-source project Every Door has been a really convenient on-the-go tool for contributing these annotations[1]
Could someone who’s been successful at getting these banned at the local level speak to how they did it?
(We’ve recently had some high-profile political fundraisers in my town. Our state’s FOIA is halfway powerful, and a few of us were considering publishing maps of the routes they and they security details took, to illustrate how these products compromise our safety. But that strikes me as more of a fun publicity stunt than anything that would force the county.)
I have been able to get them deactivated in two cities. They have not yet been physically removed but that is looking like a likely near-term outcome.
Flock has been a "side project" that's been eating about as many hours as a part-time job since late June. I have spoken at city council meetings in two cities, met individually with city councilors, met with a chief of police, presented to city councilors in Portland, am in almost daily conversations with ACLU Oregon, have received legal advice from EFF, done numerous media interviews, and I have an upcoming presentation to the state Senate Judiciary Committee. I may also be one of the reasons that Ron Wyden's office investigated Flock more carefully over the Summer and recently released a letter suggesting that cities terminate their relationship with the company.
All of which is to say I've been in it for a while now and have had some wins.
Good and bad news: it's a lot easier to fight it now than it was in June, but it's still going to take more effort than you probably imagine.
You'll need a team. I'm one member of a community working group. We have a core group of about a half-dozen active organizers. We have filed (and paid thousands in fees for) tons of public records requests, done a lot of community organizing and outreach, built partnerships with adjacent activist organizations, and done original technical research.
There are a couple of different strategies to pursue that can kick these things out of a community. My recommendation is to find the one that you like best, and find other people that like other ones, and pursue them in parallel.
Depending on your local police department, you may find them to be surprisingly cooperative, or you may find that they dig in and start putting in an equal amount of effort to block yours. I've had both. Odds are that your city councilors are not aware at all of what Flock is or how it works, so your first step is to raise awareness. I strongly recommend starting with an approach that makes you seem like a reasonable, honest, and reliable member of your community.
I realize this comment isn't super helpful by itself. I'm a bit distracted at the moment and I don't think I could figure out how to write a helpful, comprehensive, and yet concise comment here on this. I need to put together an info packet for people that want to get efforts like this one started in their own community. In the meanwhile, you should be able to email contact@eyesoffeugene.org and I'm happy to provide advice and assistance to anyone that wants to take this up in their city.
It's not just Flock anymore. Another Y Combinator startup, Blissway has been putting cameras in a lot of places in Colorado, and you can't tell me it's not going to be used for exactly the same shit.
Assuming that one is in favor of the use of these cameras, the security issues seem like they are a big problem. The leaking of police officer personal data and locations was pretty egregious.
Would love to hear from one of the founders on what they are doing to address that.
Ooof. When I heard "android things" I knew they had a problem.
It was a google project that had little adoption and was killed only a few years after it was announced (so, better than average for google, then?).
I wonder what they estimate the "replace with newer" cost to be versus the "figure out how to deploy $modernAndroid fleet wide" costs. Bonus points if you express it as a percentage of CEO's compensation / company wide revenue.
These cameras are showing up everywhere in my state. It's creepy. I had no idea what they were, and now suddenly they're at every intersection, gas station, you name it.
I don't like that the government is tracking everyone's movements so openly. I knew they were doing this with cell phone data, but that wasn't so brazen.
Here in Austin, the city council no longer allows Flock ALPR's (automated license plate readers) on city streets, but Home Depot and other businesses still use them in their parking lots, and they scan your vehicle license plate every time you enter and exit the premises. Flock sells its data to ICE and law enforcement.
Plus they'll position them close to an intersection in the parking lot of a business so they can get around something like the restriction Austin put in.
As the CEO of Flock, don't you feel you have more information to offer this community outside of the "we do not sell data" statement you've made over and over? The fact that you do not engage here in the ethical aspects of your product doesn't look good for you and only deepens suspicion that something darker is going on behind your doors.
Every community in the nation that is home to Flock cameras should look at the user agreement between their police department (or other Flock customers) and the company, to see whether it contains a clause stating that the customer “hereby grants Flock” a “worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free free right and license” to “disclose the Agency Data… for investigative purposes.” This is the language that will govern in a community unless a department demands changes to the standard user agreement that Flock offers. That is something we absolutely urge any agencies doing business with Flock to do — and, the ACLU of Massachusetts found, is exactly what the Boston police department did.
---
What assurance does any member of the public have that your company does not and will not ever share data to which you claim a "worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free free right and license" to? Are you saying that the "customer" has the ability to choose a "do not share" flag or something? What happens when they flip that flag at some point in the future? What redress does a victim have if you share data you did not, at that point in time, have permission to share?
The comment adjacent to mine links to several findings, including from the EFF, demonstrating doubt on your assertions here. Specifically the case of Texas using Flock data outside of their jurisdiction (on a national level even) to use against abortion seekers. You have no substantial comments to make on those or any of the other active discussions that have spawned on this platform over the past year? You're obviously reading them, yet you only remain "consistent" on a technicality.
What steps is Flock taking to address the privacy overreach? Do you have data sharing agreements with Palantir? If so, do they respect the same geofencing properties that your clients supposedly have full control over?
You are selling tools that have zero upside and a lot of downsides and that are used for structural violation of the privacy of citizens. Don't hide behind that you're trying to help people stay safe, that is not what you are doing and if you believe that you can take credit for the upsides then you really should take responsibility for the downsides.
I'm looking for convincing decoy ALPR cameras because I don't think my HOA will go for a real setup, and I've got concerns over the product's security. I want the appearance of surveillance if I can't get the real thing. Being on a Flock/ALPR tracking app/site would be a huge win.
There is no benefit to signaling one's virtue in this scenario. It's like having a sign in your yard that says "Proudly Gun-Free Household".
The problem isn't zero upside, as other commenters have pointed out. The cameras have legitimate, lawful, and useful purposes. You will not gain any traction with the public or with lawmakers as long as your arguments ignore that reality.
The problem is that the downside is unbounded.
We clearly don't have the control over our governments, in either direction or degree, that would be needed to ensure that the unbounded downside of ubiquitous networked cameras won't manifest itself.
This is part of the problem with Flock, IMO. Lack of adherence to or support of norms. Psychopathy actualized as a corporation.
The societal impact of disruption of trust, of personal privacy, is under-appreciated by the corporation. It's concerned with winning profit.
(Meta) It's an inspecific argument I'm lazily laying out, yes, however the problem is ridiculously obvious.
We should not have to ask to be respected, and here we are.
Democratic decline (both the systems and participation in), truth, self respect/understanding of one's own rights ... those qualities are dying at the relentless toxic, ethically under-explored capitalization of our laws and resources. (Especially USA, compare to corporate social responsibility countries, I suspect)
Tech disruption is amazing to watch, and participate in, like a fire consuming the forest. "But what about the children?"
Seems like a broad dismissal of the claim made upthread ("Flock sells its data to ICE and law enforcement"). Why do you think it is excessively specific?
did you know that flock has a data sharing contract with ring cameras? amazon’s panopticon is much larger. i believe it is on by default and users have to manually opt out, but i don’t have a ring camera to verify.
That’s inaccurate. It’s opt-in, police request footage in a geofence, and as a Ring user, you can select to share or not. The police are only notified if you chose to share.
Only sharing specific clips is opt-in¹, but the program and its notifications are on by default. Maybe not surprisingly, consumers aren't asked if they want to participate, and the option is buried enough that most people will never see it.
¹ I'm being generous here. Police can still obtain Ring footage via warrants or "emergency" requests that don’t involve the user choosing to share anything.
hey, while I have you here Mr CEO, why are you comfortable allowing abusive cops the tech to stalk and harass former partners, I've met women that had ex husbands in the FBI that kept chasing them across country to continue the abuse and your camera systems help enable those acts.
This map of Flock cameras[0] is pretty neat. It actually utilizes OpenStreetMap data. It was controversial but at some point in the last decade OSM decided to allow annotating surveillance cameras. You can add all sorts of characteristics including what they're mounted to and which direction they're facing. As well as the manufacturer which is what that map is based on.
The open-source project Every Door has been a really convenient on-the-go tool for contributing these annotations[1]
[0] https://banishbigbrother.com/flock-camera-map/
[1] https://every-door.app/
"Find Nearby Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR)" (70 comments), https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45487452
Adversarial computer vision and DIY OSS $250 RPi Hailo ALPR (2M views), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp9MwZkHiMQ
"Tire Pressure Sensor IDs: Why, Where and When (2015)" (30 comments), https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45490202
Could someone who’s been successful at getting these banned at the local level speak to how they did it?
(We’ve recently had some high-profile political fundraisers in my town. Our state’s FOIA is halfway powerful, and a few of us were considering publishing maps of the routes they and they security details took, to illustrate how these products compromise our safety. But that strikes me as more of a fun publicity stunt than anything that would force the county.)
I have been able to get them deactivated in two cities. They have not yet been physically removed but that is looking like a likely near-term outcome.
Flock has been a "side project" that's been eating about as many hours as a part-time job since late June. I have spoken at city council meetings in two cities, met individually with city councilors, met with a chief of police, presented to city councilors in Portland, am in almost daily conversations with ACLU Oregon, have received legal advice from EFF, done numerous media interviews, and I have an upcoming presentation to the state Senate Judiciary Committee. I may also be one of the reasons that Ron Wyden's office investigated Flock more carefully over the Summer and recently released a letter suggesting that cities terminate their relationship with the company.
All of which is to say I've been in it for a while now and have had some wins.
Good and bad news: it's a lot easier to fight it now than it was in June, but it's still going to take more effort than you probably imagine.
You'll need a team. I'm one member of a community working group. We have a core group of about a half-dozen active organizers. We have filed (and paid thousands in fees for) tons of public records requests, done a lot of community organizing and outreach, built partnerships with adjacent activist organizations, and done original technical research.
There are a couple of different strategies to pursue that can kick these things out of a community. My recommendation is to find the one that you like best, and find other people that like other ones, and pursue them in parallel.
Depending on your local police department, you may find them to be surprisingly cooperative, or you may find that they dig in and start putting in an equal amount of effort to block yours. I've had both. Odds are that your city councilors are not aware at all of what Flock is or how it works, so your first step is to raise awareness. I strongly recommend starting with an approach that makes you seem like a reasonable, honest, and reliable member of your community.
I realize this comment isn't super helpful by itself. I'm a bit distracted at the moment and I don't think I could figure out how to write a helpful, comprehensive, and yet concise comment here on this. I need to put together an info packet for people that want to get efforts like this one started in their own community. In the meanwhile, you should be able to email contact@eyesoffeugene.org and I'm happy to provide advice and assistance to anyone that wants to take this up in their city.
Would you be open to consulting for a group that's trying to do the same in west Wyoming?
> There are a couple of different strategies to pursue that can kick these things out of a community
Would love to hear more about these, even if it's just a wall of links or brief thoughts.
This is the most serious effort I've seen:
https://ij.org/press-release/judge-rules-lawsuit-challenging...
Not exactly trying to get new legislation passed but working within the courts to set some boundaries.
This article might point to a way: https://neuburger.substack.com/p/cities-panic-over-having-to...
request every shot taken outside of police depts and compile a list of private plate numbers for all the cops, watch shit change hella fast
It's not just Flock anymore. Another Y Combinator startup, Blissway has been putting cameras in a lot of places in Colorado, and you can't tell me it's not going to be used for exactly the same shit.
Would the local laws banning Flock also apply to Blissway?
Assuming that one is in favor of the use of these cameras, the security issues seem like they are a big problem. The leaking of police officer personal data and locations was pretty egregious.
Would love to hear from one of the founders on what they are doing to address that.
Ooof. When I heard "android things" I knew they had a problem. It was a google project that had little adoption and was killed only a few years after it was announced (so, better than average for google, then?).
I wonder what they estimate the "replace with newer" cost to be versus the "figure out how to deploy $modernAndroid fleet wide" costs. Bonus points if you express it as a percentage of CEO's compensation / company wide revenue.
The camera companies always end up having a lot in common:
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/2123068verkadac...
…what’s the commonality?
lack of security it looks like
Make Classwarfare MAD Again
These cameras are showing up everywhere in my state. It's creepy. I had no idea what they were, and now suddenly they're at every intersection, gas station, you name it.
I don't like that the government is tracking everyone's movements so openly. I knew they were doing this with cell phone data, but that wasn't so brazen.
Here in Austin, the city council no longer allows Flock ALPR's (automated license plate readers) on city streets, but Home Depot and other businesses still use them in their parking lots, and they scan your vehicle license plate every time you enter and exit the premises. Flock sells its data to ICE and law enforcement.
Plus they'll position them close to an intersection in the parking lot of a business so they can get around something like the restriction Austin put in.
> they'll position them close to an intersection
Does Flock control where the cameras are positioned?
That’s inaccurate. We do not sell data.
Correct. Flock sells cameras and platform access, but gives data from their shared, nationwide surveillance utility to ICE and law enforcement.
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/flock-massachus...
https://www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enabled-...
https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/surveillance-com...
As the CEO of Flock, don't you feel you have more information to offer this community outside of the "we do not sell data" statement you've made over and over? The fact that you do not engage here in the ethical aspects of your product doesn't look good for you and only deepens suspicion that something darker is going on behind your doors.
Consistent because it’s the truth. We do not and have never been in the business of monetizing data.
Our customers place cameras and have total control over where and how that information is shared with law enforcement.
There is no conspiracy theory here or “dark activity” behind doors.
We are trying to help people stay safe.
Welcome feedback or new ideas to make our communities safe.
From the ACLU article above:
Every community in the nation that is home to Flock cameras should look at the user agreement between their police department (or other Flock customers) and the company, to see whether it contains a clause stating that the customer “hereby grants Flock” a “worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free free right and license” to “disclose the Agency Data… for investigative purposes.” This is the language that will govern in a community unless a department demands changes to the standard user agreement that Flock offers. That is something we absolutely urge any agencies doing business with Flock to do — and, the ACLU of Massachusetts found, is exactly what the Boston police department did.
---
What assurance does any member of the public have that your company does not and will not ever share data to which you claim a "worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free free right and license" to? Are you saying that the "customer" has the ability to choose a "do not share" flag or something? What happens when they flip that flag at some point in the future? What redress does a victim have if you share data you did not, at that point in time, have permission to share?
The comment adjacent to mine links to several findings, including from the EFF, demonstrating doubt on your assertions here. Specifically the case of Texas using Flock data outside of their jurisdiction (on a national level even) to use against abortion seekers. You have no substantial comments to make on those or any of the other active discussions that have spawned on this platform over the past year? You're obviously reading them, yet you only remain "consistent" on a technicality.
What steps is Flock taking to address the privacy overreach? Do you have data sharing agreements with Palantir? If so, do they respect the same geofencing properties that your clients supposedly have full control over?
This is totally disingenuous.
You are selling tools that have zero upside and a lot of downsides and that are used for structural violation of the privacy of citizens. Don't hide behind that you're trying to help people stay safe, that is not what you are doing and if you believe that you can take credit for the upsides then you really should take responsibility for the downsides.
Zero upside? LOL, no.
I'm looking for convincing decoy ALPR cameras because I don't think my HOA will go for a real setup, and I've got concerns over the product's security. I want the appearance of surveillance if I can't get the real thing. Being on a Flock/ALPR tracking app/site would be a huge win.
There is no benefit to signaling one's virtue in this scenario. It's like having a sign in your yard that says "Proudly Gun-Free Household".
The problem isn't zero upside, as other commenters have pointed out. The cameras have legitimate, lawful, and useful purposes. You will not gain any traction with the public or with lawmakers as long as your arguments ignore that reality.
The problem is that the downside is unbounded.
We clearly don't have the control over our governments, in either direction or degree, that would be needed to ensure that the unbounded downside of ubiquitous networked cameras won't manifest itself.
>Welcome feedback or new ideas to make our communities safe.
Nuture not control.
Living wage.
Access to day care.
Royal we.
This is part of the problem with Flock, IMO. Lack of adherence to or support of norms. Psychopathy actualized as a corporation.
The societal impact of disruption of trust, of personal privacy, is under-appreciated by the corporation. It's concerned with winning profit.
(Meta) It's an inspecific argument I'm lazily laying out, yes, however the problem is ridiculously obvious.
We should not have to ask to be respected, and here we are.
Democratic decline (both the systems and participation in), truth, self respect/understanding of one's own rights ... those qualities are dying at the relentless toxic, ethically under-explored capitalization of our laws and resources. (Especially USA, compare to corporate social responsibility countries, I suspect)
Tech disruption is amazing to watch, and participate in, like a fire consuming the forest. "But what about the children?"
that's an odly specific answer.
Seems like a broad dismissal of the claim made upthread ("Flock sells its data to ICE and law enforcement"). Why do you think it is excessively specific?
did you know that flock has a data sharing contract with ring cameras? amazon’s panopticon is much larger. i believe it is on by default and users have to manually opt out, but i don’t have a ring camera to verify.
That’s inaccurate. It’s opt-in, police request footage in a geofence, and as a Ring user, you can select to share or not. The police are only notified if you chose to share.
Only sharing specific clips is opt-in¹, but the program and its notifications are on by default. Maybe not surprisingly, consumers aren't asked if they want to participate, and the option is buried enough that most people will never see it.
¹ I'm being generous here. Police can still obtain Ring footage via warrants or "emergency" requests that don’t involve the user choosing to share anything.
So your concern here is spam of unsolicited requests from LE to consider sharing data related to some local event?
Feel free to place a disclosure that you are a cofounder of Flock.
hey, while I have you here Mr CEO, why are you comfortable allowing abusive cops the tech to stalk and harass former partners, I've met women that had ex husbands in the FBI that kept chasing them across country to continue the abuse and your camera systems help enable those acts.
I hope you lose sleep like those women do.
I'll just leave this one here
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15075384