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Food Delivery Robots Are Feeding Camera Footage to the LAPD, Emails Show

23 points by arkadiyt 3y ago

Simulacra 3y ago
At this point, is there any public camera that is not feeding footage back to the government?
- furyofantares 3y ago
  Yeah, the ones on the food delivery robots in this "article".
- pizzafeelsright 3y ago
  America? Maybe. PRC? Probably
yakz 3y ago
It was video footage of people trying to steal the robot. That feels like a weird basis for an article about the privacy implications of sharing video from delivery robots with the government. Like, of course they are going to provide the video in this particular case, why would they hesitate and why would anyone question it? "The problem is that neither Kashani, nor Thelwell, nor the company’s privacy policy actually explain how long it keeps video for, what its surveillance policies are, or how it intends to uphold these policies in the face of, say, a police subpoena." Except that's not the problem in this case. It has nothing to do with it. The article goes on to mention more incidents of vandalism against the robots. Also plainly good reasons to share video with the police.
neilv 3y ago
I think this is a duplicate of a rightly dead post: [flagged] [dead] Food Delivery Robots Are Feeding Camera Footage to the LAPD (404media.co) 21 points by lxm 2 days ago | 6 comments | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37698428 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37698428
olliecornelia 3y ago
Wow 404 Media already jumped the shark?
- internet2000 3y ago
  There's a ton of submissions flagged for being clickbait from that domain: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=404media.co https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=404media.co Seems like that website was created in the air mid shark-jump.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
buildbot 3y ago
The expansion of the surveillance state is bad - but honestly this is sort of a weak story. They uploaded footage showing the attempted theft of their own robot to the LAPD. That seems…normal? If they streamed all video to a police server live for later digging that’s totally different. Which is basically what a ring cam does, given that Amazon will happily hand over all footage with a simple request.
dkarl 3y ago
> The specific incident in question was a grand larceny case where two men tried (and failed) to steal a robot owned and operated by Serve Robotics I think there should be legal limitations in place to strictly limit police use of camera footage, but even in my ideal world, this would be fine. A possible crime was identified, the crime was targeted at the device that was recording the video, and the footage was provided voluntarily by the intended victim of the crime. The headline is completely misleading, unless they decided to hide their best evidence deep in the article somewhere. This seems exactly like a driver providing dashcam footage of somebody running into them. I expect the police are very happy for this case to be held up as an example, since it would tend to calm concerns rather than raise them.
zappo2938 3y ago
What did I miss? Someone stole a robot with a camera. Video from the robot's camera was given to the police about this case. Normally, all video from the robot's camera is deleted per a short retention policy. While sitting a public area working on my computer minding my own business not interacting with anyone, a drug user who looked like some of the people abusing the robot in the video had threatened to beat me last week. I spoke with the business with a camera to see if they had evidence of this. The camera also recorded the voice. I called the police and made a report submitting evidence of the assault. How is this different. The camera and police acted as they should. Why is this bad? I'm happy there was camera recording.
pizzafeelsright 3y ago
"subpoena from the LAPD" Good. My question is if this robot drives on to my property, is it trespassing? The answer is obviously yes. If yes, I am authorized to defend my property. Scrub all data upon the crime. Make the owner responsible, financially, criminally, and these violations will be a priority.
- gumby 3y ago
  > My question is if this robot drives on to my property, is it trespassing? The answer is obviously yes. Surely the answer is “no” if it is delivering something you asked for.
  - pizzafeelsright 3y ago
    That's correct. The definition of trespassing would not apply.

23 points by arkadiyt 3y ago

Simulacra 3y ago

At this point, is there any public camera that is not feeding footage back to the government?

furyofantares 3y ago
Yeah, the ones on the food delivery robots in this "article".
pizzafeelsright 3y ago
America? Maybe. PRC? Probably

yakz 3y ago

It was video footage of people trying to steal the robot. That feels like a weird basis for an article about the privacy implications of sharing video from delivery robots with the government. Like, of course they are going to provide the video in this particular case, why would they hesitate and why would anyone question it? "The problem is that neither Kashani, nor Thelwell, nor the company’s privacy policy actually explain how long it keeps video for, what its surveillance policies are, or how it intends to uphold these policies in the face of, say, a police subpoena." Except that's not the problem in this case. It has nothing to do with it. The article goes on to mention more incidents of vandalism against the robots. Also plainly good reasons to share video with the police.

neilv 3y ago

I think this is a duplicate of a rightly dead post: [flagged] [dead] Food Delivery Robots Are Feeding Camera Footage to the LAPD (404media.co) 21 points by lxm 2 days ago | 6 comments | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37698428 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37698428

olliecornelia 3y ago

Wow 404 Media already jumped the shark?

internet2000 3y ago
There's a ton of submissions flagged for being clickbait from that domain: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=404media.co https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=404media.co Seems like that website was created in the air mid shark-jump.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

buildbot 3y ago

The expansion of the surveillance state is bad - but honestly this is sort of a weak story. They uploaded footage showing the attempted theft of their own robot to the LAPD. That seems…normal? If they streamed all video to a police server live for later digging that’s totally different. Which is basically what a ring cam does, given that Amazon will happily hand over all footage with a simple request.

dkarl 3y ago

> The specific incident in question was a grand larceny case where two men tried (and failed) to steal a robot owned and operated by Serve Robotics I think there should be legal limitations in place to strictly limit police use of camera footage, but even in my ideal world, this would be fine. A possible crime was identified, the crime was targeted at the device that was recording the video, and the footage was provided voluntarily by the intended victim of the crime. The headline is completely misleading, unless they decided to hide their best evidence deep in the article somewhere. This seems exactly like a driver providing dashcam footage of somebody running into them. I expect the police are very happy for this case to be held up as an example, since it would tend to calm concerns rather than raise them.

zappo2938 3y ago

What did I miss? Someone stole a robot with a camera. Video from the robot's camera was given to the police about this case. Normally, all video from the robot's camera is deleted per a short retention policy. While sitting a public area working on my computer minding my own business not interacting with anyone, a drug user who looked like some of the people abusing the robot in the video had threatened to beat me last week. I spoke with the business with a camera to see if they had evidence of this. The camera also recorded the voice. I called the police and made a report submitting evidence of the assault. How is this different. The camera and police acted as they should. Why is this bad? I'm happy there was camera recording.

pizzafeelsright 3y ago

"subpoena from the LAPD" Good. My question is if this robot drives on to my property, is it trespassing? The answer is obviously yes. If yes, I am authorized to defend my property. Scrub all data upon the crime. Make the owner responsible, financially, criminally, and these violations will be a priority.

gumby 3y ago
> My question is if this robot drives on to my property, is it trespassing? The answer is obviously yes. Surely the answer is “no” if it is delivering something you asked for.
- pizzafeelsright 3y ago
  That's correct. The definition of trespassing would not apply.