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It's not clear to me what this story has to do with Flock specifically. Surveillance cameras have been around for a long time, and cops can use footage from the

It's not clear to me what this story has to do with Flock specifically. Surveillance cameras have been around for a long time, and cops can use footage from them as evidence for charging people with theft. Cops can legally lie to suspects about all sorts of things including how certain they are of evidence against a specific person - this is probably a bad thing that ought to be legally reformed, but it also has nothing specifically to do with Flock or surveillance cameras more generally. > She later watched footage from the victim’s doorbell camera, which was posted on NextDoor, showing the package thief. It seems like a package theft did in fact happen, and that the house owner themselves chose to put up cameras to record their door and posted the footage of it on the internet. In fact this footage was evidence the person in this article used to exonerate themselves, so this isn't even a general argument against surveillance cameras. I wish this article explored more why the cops thought the thief was this person, or tried to suggest a better procedure for the police to use. Should the police have been legally required to just send the court summons and not try to talk to the suspect? Is there a better procedure than having a court case for incidents like this where a theft seems to have actually occurred and the police think they have a suspect? How ought the system to work here?

stonogo 1y ago
The police decided she was the perpetrator because of the Flock cameras flagging her. The doorbell footage was not conclusive, so the police ran a search against Flock, and it incorrectly reported her car in the area during that time. Flock installations comprise dozens or hundreds of cameras, and the police search for "vehicles at this place during this time" and the Flock servers use AI to report results. In this case, it reported incorrect results. But instead of building any kind of real evidence, the police just took the Flock system's word and charged her with a crime. So, this story is about Flock peripherally, and a miscarriage of justice using their tools specifically.
- FireBeyond 1y ago
  Not only that, but Flock actively uses AI to proactively report to police departments "vehicle movements that appear to be suspicious".
  - JohnFen 1y ago
    I wonder what their system considers to be suspicious movements. I routinely choose my driving routes to avoid being spotted by these spy devices, but there are times that it's impossible to avoid being caught by one or two, which could make it pretty clear I'm trying to avoid being seen by these things. Would that be considered "suspicious"?
- JuniperMesos 1y ago
  From the article, it seems like the woman had in fact driven her car to the town where the theft happened at roughly the same time for unrelated reasons, which isn't surprising because it's a neighboring town, and there was additional non-Flock camera footage of what she was doing there. It doesn't seem like any camera system mentioned here was actually recording anything inaccurate - the cops just claimed that the (non-Flock) camera footage from the package theft victim was evidence that the woman stole the package, and that's the camera footage the cop refused to show her at the time of delivering the summons. It also seems like this is exactly the footage that the woman later found online and used to exonerate herself, although that's not 100% clear from the article. It really doesn't seem like any surveillance camera system, Flock or otherwise, did anything wrong here. Flock (accurately) suggested her car was in the general area when the theft happened, a non-flock camera did record a person stealing the package who was apparently not her, and have no idea how reasonable it was for the cops to think that footage justified charging her (although the fact that they would not show her the footage is very suspicious). It doesn't seem like there's any particular policy on use of surveillance cameras that would've prevented this false accusation, and this is purely about the cops (or maybe just this one cop) charging someone based on bad evidence; which is problem in and of itself and isn't directly related to Flock or any other brand of surveillance cameras in particular.
- sidewndr46 1y ago
  I mean, this isn't really any different than anything else police do. Police do not understand how breathalyzers, field drug testing kits, vehicle speed sensors, or anything else work for that matter. Thing X says person A did Y. Therefore, it happened.

stonogo 1y ago

The police decided she was the perpetrator because of the Flock cameras flagging her. The doorbell footage was not conclusive, so the police ran a search against Flock, and it incorrectly reported her car in the area during that time. Flock installations comprise dozens or hundreds of cameras, and the police search for "vehicles at this place during this time" and the Flock servers use AI to report results. In this case, it reported incorrect results. But instead of building any kind of real evidence, the police just took the Flock system's word and charged her with a crime. So, this story is about Flock peripherally, and a miscarriage of justice using their tools specifically.

FireBeyond 1y ago
Not only that, but Flock actively uses AI to proactively report to police departments "vehicle movements that appear to be suspicious".
- JohnFen 1y ago
  I wonder what their system considers to be suspicious movements. I routinely choose my driving routes to avoid being spotted by these spy devices, but there are times that it's impossible to avoid being caught by one or two, which could make it pretty clear I'm trying to avoid being seen by these things. Would that be considered "suspicious"?
JuniperMesos 1y ago
From the article, it seems like the woman had in fact driven her car to the town where the theft happened at roughly the same time for unrelated reasons, which isn't surprising because it's a neighboring town, and there was additional non-Flock camera footage of what she was doing there. It doesn't seem like any camera system mentioned here was actually recording anything inaccurate - the cops just claimed that the (non-Flock) camera footage from the package theft victim was evidence that the woman stole the package, and that's the camera footage the cop refused to show her at the time of delivering the summons. It also seems like this is exactly the footage that the woman later found online and used to exonerate herself, although that's not 100% clear from the article. It really doesn't seem like any surveillance camera system, Flock or otherwise, did anything wrong here. Flock (accurately) suggested her car was in the general area when the theft happened, a non-flock camera did record a person stealing the package who was apparently not her, and have no idea how reasonable it was for the cops to think that footage justified charging her (although the fact that they would not show her the footage is very suspicious). It doesn't seem like there's any particular policy on use of surveillance cameras that would've prevented this false accusation, and this is purely about the cops (or maybe just this one cop) charging someone based on bad evidence; which is problem in and of itself and isn't directly related to Flock or any other brand of surveillance cameras in particular.
sidewndr46 1y ago
I mean, this isn't really any different than anything else police do. Police do not understand how breathalyzers, field drug testing kits, vehicle speed sensors, or anything else work for that matter. Thing X says person A did Y. Therefore, it happened.