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I drove into a very affluent subdivision this weekend, and like most others around here it had a flock camera recording every car on the way in. This camera, ho

I drove into a very affluent subdivision this weekend, and like most others around here it had a flock camera recording every car on the way in. This camera, however, had the gall to advertise its presence as a neighborhood security measure. "Flock Safety watches this neighborhood" read the sign on the post, or some such. Of course the residents there had no choice but to accept its installation, as the local police support it. Nefarious framing and marketing in the name of "safety".

bradleyankrom 6mo ago
I saw the same thing in a Home Depot parking lot yesterday. I guess I'm glad there's some sort of notice about it, even if its intent is more, I dunno, branding? It took me a while to figure out what all the solar panel + camera on a post installations were as they popped up around my town. I even pulled over to inspect the hardware for signs of ownership and didn't find anything.
whimsicalism 6mo ago
we enforce laws presumably in the name of safety, is this really nefarious framing or marketing? seems pretty straightforward to me.
- baggachipz 6mo ago
  It is very clearly advertising on their part. They have been paid to put that thing there and added the sign to announce the presence. It's like when you get your roof replaced by a business and they ask if they can put a sign in your yard. They're not doing it to make everybody know that you're getting your roof replaced, they're advertising.
bob1029 6mo ago
> no choice but to accept its installation You might be shocked to discover there are subdivisions so affluent they can afford physical armed security and access control structures with far more invasive identification and logging procedures.
- baggachipz 6mo ago
  I am not shocked to know that, but there are Flock cameras all over the town. None of the other ones have this advertisement on them. This neighborhood is not gated. However, Flock decided to do announce its presence only here.
  - alex43578 6mo ago
    Why is this such a surprise? It’s just like those “ADT Monitoring” signs in someone’s yard, scaled to the community.
    - baggachipz 6mo ago
      Because as far as I've seen until now, Flock cameras were stealthily installed and unannounced by the local government. When somebody contracts a company like ADT, they pay money and put that sign up voluntarily.
- burnt-resistor 6mo ago
  A few? / some? of the very richest and most exclusive have armed quick reaction forces of essentially off-duty/retired police and PMCs. I know of one by a fancy hotel where presidents, celebs, and other heads of states stay beside very rich residential neighborhood abutting fancy condos/apartments. Interestingly, a lot of ordinary "gated" communities aren't as exclusive as their misleading signage suggests. For example, there are a number of areas where the sidewalks are indeed public and right-of-ways but display says the area is "private" when it is not as evidenced by county GIS data. Jeff Gray runs into this often in Florida. It's similar to the bogus "no parking" signs and hiding of public right of way access that routinely happens in Malibu.
HoldOnAMinute 6mo ago
Monte Sereno or Saratoga?
SoftTalker 6mo ago
Most of the houses probably have little yard signs advertising some security service, and stickers on the doors advertising an alarm company too.
- baggachipz 6mo ago
  Ok? They paid for those.
  - SoftTalker 6mo ago
    It's all just part of the scenery in neighborhoods like that. Like "Beware of dog" signs in poorer neighborhoods or "This property protected by Smith & Wesson" in rural areas.
ggreer 6mo ago
It's probably the neighborhood HOA that pays for it. My HOA got Flock cameras after a string of thefts, and has similar signs up. The HOA encourages homeowners to submit their car license plate info so that if a crime is reported, it's easier to identify cars that don't belong to homeowners. Soon after the cameras were installed, some thieves stole a gift my brother had sent me. Thanks to license plate data and images of their faces, Vancouver PD had little trouble catching the perpetrators. It turned out that in addition to stealing Amazon/UPS/Fedex packages, they were stealing USPS mail and using it to commit identity theft. IIRC they ended up getting a decade in federal prison. It seems like only a few people are responsible for the majority of thefts, so catching them and locking them up drastically improves quality of life for everyone else. Obviously this technology could be abused, but that's also true for things like fingerprinting, DNA evidence, and ID requirements. Similarly to those technologies, we could have laws restricting certain uses, allowing us to reduce crime while preventing abuses. But if a private community wants to install cameras and allow law enforcement to access the data they record, I don't see any constitutional issues.
- baggachipz 6mo ago
  Fair point and I hadn't considered that. I just assumed that no place would voluntarily use Flock. Thanks for the info and perspective.

bradleyankrom 6mo ago

I saw the same thing in a Home Depot parking lot yesterday. I guess I'm glad there's some sort of notice about it, even if its intent is more, I dunno, branding? It took me a while to figure out what all the solar panel + camera on a post installations were as they popped up around my town. I even pulled over to inspect the hardware for signs of ownership and didn't find anything.

whimsicalism 6mo ago

we enforce laws presumably in the name of safety, is this really nefarious framing or marketing? seems pretty straightforward to me.

baggachipz 6mo ago
It is very clearly advertising on their part. They have been paid to put that thing there and added the sign to announce the presence. It's like when you get your roof replaced by a business and they ask if they can put a sign in your yard. They're not doing it to make everybody know that you're getting your roof replaced, they're advertising.

bob1029 6mo ago

> no choice but to accept its installation You might be shocked to discover there are subdivisions so affluent they can afford physical armed security and access control structures with far more invasive identification and logging procedures.

baggachipz 6mo ago
I am not shocked to know that, but there are Flock cameras all over the town. None of the other ones have this advertisement on them. This neighborhood is not gated. However, Flock decided to do announce its presence only here.
- alex43578 6mo ago
  Why is this such a surprise? It’s just like those “ADT Monitoring” signs in someone’s yard, scaled to the community.
  - baggachipz 6mo ago
    Because as far as I've seen until now, Flock cameras were stealthily installed and unannounced by the local government. When somebody contracts a company like ADT, they pay money and put that sign up voluntarily.
burnt-resistor 6mo ago
A few? / some? of the very richest and most exclusive have armed quick reaction forces of essentially off-duty/retired police and PMCs. I know of one by a fancy hotel where presidents, celebs, and other heads of states stay beside very rich residential neighborhood abutting fancy condos/apartments. Interestingly, a lot of ordinary "gated" communities aren't as exclusive as their misleading signage suggests. For example, there are a number of areas where the sidewalks are indeed public and right-of-ways but display says the area is "private" when it is not as evidenced by county GIS data. Jeff Gray runs into this often in Florida. It's similar to the bogus "no parking" signs and hiding of public right of way access that routinely happens in Malibu.

HoldOnAMinute 6mo ago

Monte Sereno or Saratoga?

SoftTalker 6mo ago

Most of the houses probably have little yard signs advertising some security service, and stickers on the doors advertising an alarm company too.

baggachipz 6mo ago
Ok? They paid for those.
- SoftTalker 6mo ago
  It's all just part of the scenery in neighborhoods like that. Like "Beware of dog" signs in poorer neighborhoods or "This property protected by Smith & Wesson" in rural areas.

ggreer 6mo ago

It's probably the neighborhood HOA that pays for it. My HOA got Flock cameras after a string of thefts, and has similar signs up. The HOA encourages homeowners to submit their car license plate info so that if a crime is reported, it's easier to identify cars that don't belong to homeowners. Soon after the cameras were installed, some thieves stole a gift my brother had sent me. Thanks to license plate data and images of their faces, Vancouver PD had little trouble catching the perpetrators. It turned out that in addition to stealing Amazon/UPS/Fedex packages, they were stealing USPS mail and using it to commit identity theft. IIRC they ended up getting a decade in federal prison. It seems like only a few people are responsible for the majority of thefts, so catching them and locking them up drastically improves quality of life for everyone else. Obviously this technology could be abused, but that's also true for things like fingerprinting, DNA evidence, and ID requirements. Similarly to those technologies, we could have laws restricting certain uses, allowing us to reduce crime while preventing abuses. But if a private community wants to install cameras and allow law enforcement to access the data they record, I don't see any constitutional issues.

baggachipz 6mo ago
Fair point and I hadn't considered that. I just assumed that no place would voluntarily use Flock. Thanks for the info and perspective.