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They were saying "don't write to us, talk to the people who own the cameras and ask them to delete the data". A company that manufactures video cameras is not t

They were saying "don't write to us, talk to the people who own the cameras and ask them to delete the data". A company that manufactures video cameras is not the one to talk to when someone records you, talk to the person who recorded you. But a reasonable person would say -- the data is stored on Flock servers, not with the camera owners. And Flock would say, just because we sell data storage functionality to camera owners doesn't mean we own the data, anymore than a storage service you rent a space from owns what you put in that space. But then an even more reasonable person would say: the infrastructure is designed in such a way as to create inadvertent sharing, and the system has vulnerabilities that compromise the data, so Flock has responsibility for setting up the system in such a way that it's basically designed to violate privacy. And that is the main criticism of Flock. You need to have a more nuanced criticism. It would be really interesting to see this litigated.

fudgy73 6mo ago
AFAIK Flock owns the cameras and leases them out [0]. [0] https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/flock-safety-does-my-neighborhood-need-flock-security-cameras https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/flock-safety-does-my-neighb...
- mminer237 6mo ago
  If you go to Rent-A-Center and rent a DSLR, that doesn't make Rent-A-Center responsible for the pictures taken by their cameras.
  - kstrauser 6mo ago
    If Rent-A-Center installed the camera in a bathroom, I'd contend that it does. Flock's cameras aren't in bathrooms. However, they're still recording people who haven't opted into it. ("But you have no expectation of privacy in a public place!" "You have the expectation that someone might inadvertently overhear you. You don't have the expectation that someone is actively recording you at all times.")
    - valianteffort 6mo ago
      [dead]
  - danielsunsu 6mo ago
    I think if it were only offline storage it would not be as big of an issue. A more accurate analogy would be renting a DSLR that automatically transmits every picture to Rent-A-Center servers.
  - yabutlivnWoods 6mo ago
    Your example is apples and oranges. Flock maintains private infrastructure that stores data. If the DSLR uploaded them to Rent-A-Center owned/leased servers it would in fact require Rent-A-Center to take the necessary steps. As Rent-A-Center would be the only group with proper access to data storage they would have inserted themselves into the chain of custody, and thereby have such obligation to ensure others data is wiped from systems they control.
    - tptacek 6mo ago
      AWS also maintains private infrastructure that stores data. Go write them asking to purge data pertaining to you from S3 and see how that goes.
      - deleted 6mo ago
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      - deleted 6mo ago
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      - itsdesmond 6mo ago
        Flock has knowledge/use of the data. Their system processes can relate the photos “owned” by two different entities. They’re interacting with it and selling their access to it as a feature. That’s obviously distinct from S3. But you knew that.
        tptacek 6mo ago
        I know quite a bit about Flock, having been intimately involved in the process of evicting it from our municipality, and I don't think the distinction you're trying to draw here is meaningful. Flock will say they provide a service, one avidly sought by the actual owners of the data, to generate analysis based on that data. They're contractually forbidden from "selling their access to it" to arbitrary parties; they can share data only with the consent of their customers, almost all of whom actively want that data shared --- this is a very rare case of a data collection product where that's actually the case.
- ldoughty 6mo ago
  But the data collected is property of the government and flock is not allowed to use that data for additional business gain (according to their statements)... So they can't sell the fact that you're at Target at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday to anybody... Nor build profiles to sell to advertisers... And if that's the case that's very similar to cloud storage vendors. If I access hacker news, and the record of my visit is stored in an AWS S3 bucket, I can't submit to AWS to delete my visitor record, even though the server, network cards, wires, and storage medium are AWS property, it was hacker news' website that generated that record and their responsibility to take my request to delete it.. AWS' stance would rightly be "talk to the website operator for CCPA requests"
  - tptacek 6mo ago
    This is also true according to their contracts (we were one of the first munis in the country to ostentatiously cancel our Flock contract, and the lead up to that was a bunch of progressive legal experts poring over that contract looking for holes.)
    - fsckboy 6mo ago
      >a bunch of progressive legal experts poring over that contract looking for holes all attorneys represent their clients; your attorney does not have to share your opinion of the law or public policy, they can still interpret what the law means to you. if you are afraid your attorney might have a bias (they are human) you may get better advice from the "misaligned" POV: the flaws/holes in a privacy law found by a pro-business conservative attorney are more likely to find sympathy in the courts from both fellow conservatives and progressive judges.
      - shermantanktop 6mo ago
        As a practical matter, this may be good advice. But it also places a demand on someone with a legitimate concern that they go find an ideological "beard" to make themselves more palatable and sympathetic. It's not hard to see how this enables an institution to gate itself from criticism.
- samrus 6mo ago
  Yeah but their argument is that if someone takes a photo of you with thier iphone and its uploaded to icloud, you cant ask apple to delete the photo, you need to ask the person who took it
mistrial9 6mo ago
the way this has been addressed in complex product liability in the past in the USA is that the public-facing Brand Owner has certain legal liability for the product, despite contractors or supply chains. In this case, it appears that the Flock company is the brand owner and is public-facing.
halJordan 6mo ago
It easily goes both ways. But we do sue American gun makers for deaths caused by lunatics. We sue drug makers for drugs prescribed by a doctor. We sue cloud providers for not reporting illegal photos. Printers are forced to id every printed page to combat counterfeiting. Banks are forced to do close accounts even though it's not their dirty money
- thebaine 6mo ago
  Most of those examples have to do with the manufacturers knowing that their products were dangerous, addictive or illegal and advertising them aggressively as safe. They're mostly litigated on product liability claims. Banks are regulated by an entire architecture of laws, and we could enact laws that would regulate Flock too, as one of the other commenters pointed out they're doing in Oregon.
- BobaFloutist 6mo ago
  > But we do sue American gun makers for deaths caused by lunatics. No we don't, there's a federal law explicitly protecting gun manufacturers from liability for gun crime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Lawful_Commerce_in_Arms_Act# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Lawful_Commerce_...
justinclift 6mo ago
Wonder if Flock could be DMCA'd to remove the data they're hosting then? :)
dozerly 6mo ago
I don’t think you’re informed on the topic. They do not just manufacture cameras.
deleted 6mo ago
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robot-wrangler 6mo ago
> They were saying "don't write to us, talk to the people who own the cameras and ask them to delete the data". The response to this should just be, "Yes, very well, please divulge a complete list of your customers, their contact information, and information about camera locations so I will be able to pursue this per instructions". When that obviously doesn't work either then we can all agree the law as written is completely useless, and feel great about rewriting it in a way that's calculated for maximum damage to both the vendor and their customers, and collateral damage to the whole panopticon. Or, just spitballing here, we can just skip to the punchline here and do all that anyway
- MaxikCZ 6mo ago
  > we can all agree the law as written is completely useless But they wont agree, they find the law very nice in its current form, and have more brib.. ehm, lobying money for it to stay that way.
beambot 6mo ago
Isn't this the equivalent of asking Google to delete your image off every Android phone (not just yours)?

fudgy73 6mo ago

AFAIK Flock owns the cameras and leases them out [0]. [0] https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/flock-safety-does-my-neighborhood-need-flock-security-cameras https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/flock-safety-does-my-neighb...

mminer237 6mo ago
If you go to Rent-A-Center and rent a DSLR, that doesn't make Rent-A-Center responsible for the pictures taken by their cameras.
- kstrauser 6mo ago
  If Rent-A-Center installed the camera in a bathroom, I'd contend that it does. Flock's cameras aren't in bathrooms. However, they're still recording people who haven't opted into it. ("But you have no expectation of privacy in a public place!" "You have the expectation that someone might inadvertently overhear you. You don't have the expectation that someone is actively recording you at all times.")
  - valianteffort 6mo ago
    [dead]
- danielsunsu 6mo ago
  I think if it were only offline storage it would not be as big of an issue. A more accurate analogy would be renting a DSLR that automatically transmits every picture to Rent-A-Center servers.
- yabutlivnWoods 6mo ago
  Your example is apples and oranges. Flock maintains private infrastructure that stores data. If the DSLR uploaded them to Rent-A-Center owned/leased servers it would in fact require Rent-A-Center to take the necessary steps. As Rent-A-Center would be the only group with proper access to data storage they would have inserted themselves into the chain of custody, and thereby have such obligation to ensure others data is wiped from systems they control.
  - tptacek 6mo ago
    AWS also maintains private infrastructure that stores data. Go write them asking to purge data pertaining to you from S3 and see how that goes.
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
    - itsdesmond 6mo ago
      Flock has knowledge/use of the data. Their system processes can relate the photos “owned” by two different entities. They’re interacting with it and selling their access to it as a feature. That’s obviously distinct from S3. But you knew that.
      - tptacek 6mo ago
        I know quite a bit about Flock, having been intimately involved in the process of evicting it from our municipality, and I don't think the distinction you're trying to draw here is meaningful. Flock will say they provide a service, one avidly sought by the actual owners of the data, to generate analysis based on that data. They're contractually forbidden from "selling their access to it" to arbitrary parties; they can share data only with the consent of their customers, almost all of whom actively want that data shared --- this is a very rare case of a data collection product where that's actually the case.
ldoughty 6mo ago
But the data collected is property of the government and flock is not allowed to use that data for additional business gain (according to their statements)... So they can't sell the fact that you're at Target at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday to anybody... Nor build profiles to sell to advertisers... And if that's the case that's very similar to cloud storage vendors. If I access hacker news, and the record of my visit is stored in an AWS S3 bucket, I can't submit to AWS to delete my visitor record, even though the server, network cards, wires, and storage medium are AWS property, it was hacker news' website that generated that record and their responsibility to take my request to delete it.. AWS' stance would rightly be "talk to the website operator for CCPA requests"
- tptacek 6mo ago
  This is also true according to their contracts (we were one of the first munis in the country to ostentatiously cancel our Flock contract, and the lead up to that was a bunch of progressive legal experts poring over that contract looking for holes.)
  - fsckboy 6mo ago
    >a bunch of progressive legal experts poring over that contract looking for holes all attorneys represent their clients; your attorney does not have to share your opinion of the law or public policy, they can still interpret what the law means to you. if you are afraid your attorney might have a bias (they are human) you may get better advice from the "misaligned" POV: the flaws/holes in a privacy law found by a pro-business conservative attorney are more likely to find sympathy in the courts from both fellow conservatives and progressive judges.
    - shermantanktop 6mo ago
      As a practical matter, this may be good advice. But it also places a demand on someone with a legitimate concern that they go find an ideological "beard" to make themselves more palatable and sympathetic. It's not hard to see how this enables an institution to gate itself from criticism.
samrus 6mo ago
Yeah but their argument is that if someone takes a photo of you with thier iphone and its uploaded to icloud, you cant ask apple to delete the photo, you need to ask the person who took it

mistrial9 6mo ago

the way this has been addressed in complex product liability in the past in the USA is that the public-facing Brand Owner has certain legal liability for the product, despite contractors or supply chains. In this case, it appears that the Flock company is the brand owner and is public-facing.

halJordan 6mo ago

It easily goes both ways. But we do sue American gun makers for deaths caused by lunatics. We sue drug makers for drugs prescribed by a doctor. We sue cloud providers for not reporting illegal photos. Printers are forced to id every printed page to combat counterfeiting. Banks are forced to do close accounts even though it's not their dirty money

thebaine 6mo ago
Most of those examples have to do with the manufacturers knowing that their products were dangerous, addictive or illegal and advertising them aggressively as safe. They're mostly litigated on product liability claims. Banks are regulated by an entire architecture of laws, and we could enact laws that would regulate Flock too, as one of the other commenters pointed out they're doing in Oregon.
BobaFloutist 6mo ago
> But we do sue American gun makers for deaths caused by lunatics. No we don't, there's a federal law explicitly protecting gun manufacturers from liability for gun crime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Lawful_Commerce_in_Arms_Act# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Lawful_Commerce_...

justinclift 6mo ago

Wonder if Flock could be DMCA'd to remove the data they're hosting then? :)

dozerly 6mo ago

I don’t think you’re informed on the topic. They do not just manufacture cameras.

deleted 6mo ago

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deleted 6mo ago

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robot-wrangler 6mo ago

> They were saying "don't write to us, talk to the people who own the cameras and ask them to delete the data". The response to this should just be, "Yes, very well, please divulge a complete list of your customers, their contact information, and information about camera locations so I will be able to pursue this per instructions". When that obviously doesn't work either then we can all agree the law as written is completely useless, and feel great about rewriting it in a way that's calculated for maximum damage to both the vendor and their customers, and collateral damage to the whole panopticon. Or, just spitballing here, we can just skip to the punchline here and do all that anyway

MaxikCZ 6mo ago
> we can all agree the law as written is completely useless But they wont agree, they find the law very nice in its current form, and have more brib.. ehm, lobying money for it to stay that way.

beambot 6mo ago

Isn't this the equivalent of asking Google to delete your image off every Android phone (not just yours)?