6 ms·

I gotta say, it's incredibly inconsiderate and thoughtless to publish the real time location of a bunch of public safety officers in an individually identifiabl

I gotta say, it's incredibly inconsiderate and thoughtless to publish the real time location of a bunch of public safety officers in an individually identifiable way. I understand the sentiment, and I appreciate the hackery... but you put these people at risk today. You need to think much more carefully about how you approach things like this in the future.

dymk 1y ago
I’m playing the world’s smallest violin for those poor parking enforcement officers
- blactuary 1y ago
  Parking enforcement is unequivocally good and these people are not regular cops
  - shinypants 1y ago
    I have to disagree that it is unequivocally good as many of the tickets SFMTA writes are for minor inconsequential violations and are disproportionately punitive. Obviously this is my opinion and personal experience but in the past 6 months I have received multiple tickets for not turning my wheels enough on a flat street, tickets for missing license plates (it was just not visible), and for miscommunication between the residential permitting and parking authority. Each of these was over $100 and/or required me to spend a considerable amount of effort to resolve. More than any other city I have lived in the parking authority seems almost adversarial to car ownership and streamlining of the bureaucracy related to car ownership.
RS-232 1y ago
I disagree. There should be no expectation of privacy for any public officer. Things like this website, body cameras, and FOIA requests are all for the public good. Expose corruption and keep everyone safer with a little accountability.
- jcalvinowens 1y ago
  That's a false dichotomy. There is a world difference between everything you mentioned, and publishing the real time locations of officers by their actual name (initials) on a website anybody can visit.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  > There should be no expectation of privacy for any public officer. So live public webcams in the employee restrooms in all government buildings? I would argue that public officers would retain personal privacy, but that such privacy cannot be a shield against the public for the government concealing substantive operations, and that the identity of public officers and the substantive means by which they are engaged in the exercise of public functions, are therefore not within the space of their personal privacy.
  - RS-232 1y ago
    While personal privacy may be preserved outside the scope of public acts, an individual who, in the execution of official duties, operates vehicles displaying lights or sirens and wears official identification inherently waives any claim to geospatial privacy.
    - hn_go_brrrrr 1y ago
      I dunno, I don't think we should publish the real-time location of guards protecting sensitive government locations.
      - ceejayoz 1y ago
        Oh, there's no need. They leak that themselves! https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/28/fitness-tracking-app-gives-away-location-of-secret-us-army-bases https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/28/fitness-tracki... https://apnews.com/article/biden-trump-macron-bodyguards-security-strava-0a48afca09c7aa74d703e72833dcaf72 https://apnews.com/article/biden-trump-macron-bodyguards-sec...
- 1y ago
Barbing 1y ago
Thank you for thinking about the safety of our neighbors. May I ask whether you've considered the unique vehicles the parking enforcement agents use? SFMTA is hard to miss in their 3-wheelers--believe it's the Westward Industries "GO-4" Interceptor. I may have a blind spot here (like someone with access to an armed drone fleet could have made use of the map?), but essentially all private citizens will see these unmistakable three-wheelers simply by opening their front doors or heading downtown. Or into most any neighborhood. For others reading this besides you, what additional safety burden could be presented by this map which is absent simply with any of the 800,000 pairs of human eyeballs in SF? (Here to learn, no snark!)
- varenc 1y ago
  The 800,000 pairs of human eyeballs aren't hooked up to a public real-time reporting system? Functionally, this is pretty different. Could argue either way.
- jcalvinowens 1y ago
  The website enabled stalking individual city employees by their initials in real time. If it just showed where the cars were, that would be much better. Although still questionable IMHO.
  - maxerickson 1y ago
    Loudly publishing the information at least got the city to stop quietly publishing the information.
    - jcalvinowens 1y ago
      You're not wrong. But serving it up on a silver platter in a pretty UI that got a lot of press was probably not necessary to make that happen.
  - Barbing 1y ago
    Initial thought: That doesn’t sound great. Thank you!
greesil 1y ago
Tut tut. What's the threat model?
neilv 1y ago
I agree. And we should also be similarly conscientious about the privacy of everyone else as well. (Even though respecting privacy would mean that a massive number of HN techbros would quickly be unemployed.)
EasyMark 1y ago
We'd probably care if they weren't tracking us whenever they get a chance.
- notJim 1y ago
  You think the SF parking enforcement agency is tracking everyone?! That's one of the wilder conspiracy theories I've heard recently.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
potato3732842 1y ago
Most states have a public real time map showing snow plow locations. Ask yourself why is it not a problem when their info is public. At the end of the day what this comes down to is the current scale of parking tickets being something that needs to be backed by more violence (i.e. deploy actual cops with all their associated costs) than society would tolerate (people would complain about costs, request the resources be spent elsewhere, etc).
- pyronite 1y ago
  > Most states have a public real time map showing snow plow locations. Ask yourself why is it not a problem when their info is public. From what I’m reading, I imagine it’s because the snow plow trackers don’t individually identify their operators as this seems to.
more_corn 1y ago
“Public safety” they write tickets to generate revenue. Nothing they do benefits public safety.

dymk 1y ago

I’m playing the world’s smallest violin for those poor parking enforcement officers

blactuary 1y ago
Parking enforcement is unequivocally good and these people are not regular cops
- shinypants 1y ago
  I have to disagree that it is unequivocally good as many of the tickets SFMTA writes are for minor inconsequential violations and are disproportionately punitive. Obviously this is my opinion and personal experience but in the past 6 months I have received multiple tickets for not turning my wheels enough on a flat street, tickets for missing license plates (it was just not visible), and for miscommunication between the residential permitting and parking authority. Each of these was over $100 and/or required me to spend a considerable amount of effort to resolve. More than any other city I have lived in the parking authority seems almost adversarial to car ownership and streamlining of the bureaucracy related to car ownership.

RS-232 1y ago

I disagree. There should be no expectation of privacy for any public officer. Things like this website, body cameras, and FOIA requests are all for the public good. Expose corruption and keep everyone safer with a little accountability.

jcalvinowens 1y ago
That's a false dichotomy. There is a world difference between everything you mentioned, and publishing the real time locations of officers by their actual name (initials) on a website anybody can visit.
dragonwriter 1y ago
> There should be no expectation of privacy for any public officer. So live public webcams in the employee restrooms in all government buildings? I would argue that public officers would retain personal privacy, but that such privacy cannot be a shield against the public for the government concealing substantive operations, and that the identity of public officers and the substantive means by which they are engaged in the exercise of public functions, are therefore not within the space of their personal privacy.
- RS-232 1y ago
  While personal privacy may be preserved outside the scope of public acts, an individual who, in the execution of official duties, operates vehicles displaying lights or sirens and wears official identification inherently waives any claim to geospatial privacy.
  - hn_go_brrrrr 1y ago
    I dunno, I don't think we should publish the real-time location of guards protecting sensitive government locations.
    - ceejayoz 1y ago
      Oh, there's no need. They leak that themselves! https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/28/fitness-tracking-app-gives-away-location-of-secret-us-army-bases https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/28/fitness-tracki... https://apnews.com/article/biden-trump-macron-bodyguards-security-strava-0a48afca09c7aa74d703e72833dcaf72 https://apnews.com/article/biden-trump-macron-bodyguards-sec...
1y ago

Barbing 1y ago

Thank you for thinking about the safety of our neighbors. May I ask whether you've considered the unique vehicles the parking enforcement agents use? SFMTA is hard to miss in their 3-wheelers--believe it's the Westward Industries "GO-4" Interceptor. I may have a blind spot here (like someone with access to an armed drone fleet could have made use of the map?), but essentially all private citizens will see these unmistakable three-wheelers simply by opening their front doors or heading downtown. Or into most any neighborhood. For others reading this besides you, what additional safety burden could be presented by this map which is absent simply with any of the 800,000 pairs of human eyeballs in SF? (Here to learn, no snark!)

varenc 1y ago
The 800,000 pairs of human eyeballs aren't hooked up to a public real-time reporting system? Functionally, this is pretty different. Could argue either way.
jcalvinowens 1y ago
The website enabled stalking individual city employees by their initials in real time. If it just showed where the cars were, that would be much better. Although still questionable IMHO.
- maxerickson 1y ago
  Loudly publishing the information at least got the city to stop quietly publishing the information.
  - jcalvinowens 1y ago
    You're not wrong. But serving it up on a silver platter in a pretty UI that got a lot of press was probably not necessary to make that happen.
- Barbing 1y ago
  Initial thought: That doesn’t sound great. Thank you!

greesil 1y ago

Tut tut. What's the threat model?

neilv 1y ago

I agree. And we should also be similarly conscientious about the privacy of everyone else as well. (Even though respecting privacy would mean that a massive number of HN techbros would quickly be unemployed.)

EasyMark 1y ago

We'd probably care if they weren't tracking us whenever they get a chance.

notJim 1y ago
You think the SF parking enforcement agency is tracking everyone?! That's one of the wilder conspiracy theories I've heard recently.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

potato3732842 1y ago

Most states have a public real time map showing snow plow locations. Ask yourself why is it not a problem when their info is public. At the end of the day what this comes down to is the current scale of parking tickets being something that needs to be backed by more violence (i.e. deploy actual cops with all their associated costs) than society would tolerate (people would complain about costs, request the resources be spent elsewhere, etc).

pyronite 1y ago
> Most states have a public real time map showing snow plow locations. Ask yourself why is it not a problem when their info is public. From what I’m reading, I imagine it’s because the snow plow trackers don’t individually identify their operators as this seems to.

more_corn 1y ago

“Public safety” they write tickets to generate revenue. Nothing they do benefits public safety.