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Authorities say Flock cameras' data allegedly used for immigration enforcement
- gleenn 5mo agoIt's surprising to me this is news. Governments buy and install this equipment and it flags license plates and anyone thought that wouldn't be used for things like immigration control? I'm not saying it's right, just that it's shocking people wouldn't realize that.
- MrBuddyCasino 5mo ago[flagged]
- righthand 5mo agoSpying on people is a violation of plenty of amendments. Illegal immigration is a misdemeanor not a felony. Stop treating the law as a binary illegal or not. It just leads to brain dead interpretations of the law. There is plenty of “illegal” things people do every day and yet we don’t install public dragnet cameras to stop it. Illegal immigration hasn’t shown any real harm to people that regular citizens don’t also take part in. Immigration has just been used to rile you up because you can scream “illegal illegal illegal” a bunch of times without reading the 14th amendment and understand that you can’t have a country of rights if you don’t extend those rights to non-citizens within your borders.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- kristjansson 5mo agoViz: any public comment session on any proposal to add speed cameras to any American city.
- xp84 5mo ago[flagged]
- john_strinlai 5mo ago>A “misdemeanor”? I don’t really care what you define it as, the user 'righthand' didnt define it that way... its how the government defined it in 8 U.S.C. § 1325 >Also non-citizens don’t have any particular rights beyond the Geneva Convention. this is also wrong. the constitutions protections generally extend to all people in the US
- MrBuddyCasino 5mo ago[flagged]
- pavel_lishin 5mo agoNone of this is true, see my other comment.
- john_strinlai 5mo agoit is far from correct... its actually, like, the opposite of correct.
- righthand 5mo agoNo it’s not correct. Please leave.
- pavel_lishin 5mo ago> non-citizens don’t have any particular rights beyond the Geneva Convention That's just untrue. https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C18-8-7-2/ALDE_00001262/ https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C18-8... > Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, 345 U.S. 206, 212 (1953); see also Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U.S. 67, 77 (1976) ("There are literally millions of aliens within the jurisdiction of the United States. The Fifth Amendment, as well as the Fourteenth Amendment, protects every one of these persons from deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.");
- suburban_strike 5mo ago[flagged]
- righthand 5mo agoLol you’re a troll account and looking at your comment history reveals how pathetic and non-serious you are. Most likely non-American. The borders are enforced quit making up lies. In United States of America we still extend due process because that allows us to punish actual criminals. Instead you want to label everyone and deport them to a safe distance but do not want to actually punish anyone with the law or determine innocence. You have no respect for any law, and just use your own ideas of how things should work. So what is the point of the laws and punishment system if we can’t use it? When you just deport someone without due process you’re letting the “illegal” off the hook without consequences. But you know this, hence your phrasing.
- kashunstva 5mo agoThe Due Process Clauses of the 5th and 14th Amendments due not provide for selective application depending on the specific suspected crime. If the suspected crime relates to unlawful immigration, the system is bound by the Constitution to practice due process. Few here, and few progressives overall advocate for dispensing with immigration enforcement. Most deeply reject the wanton, indiscriminate and violent manner in which the current regime has carried out its practices. But the mischaracterization of this stance is a favourite straw man of the right.
- GorbachevyChase 5mo agoSo assuming you drive, when a police car gets really inappropriately close behind you for a couple minutes and then backs off, then they are probably using their eyes to look at your license plate and having someone run that or texting while driving to do that on the computer in the car. I don’t think there is a fundamental difference between this process and using a camera other than a camera doesn’t expect you to give it a pension.
- righthand 5mo agoThe cops actions are vetted and have responsible party attached. The camera is used to bypass responsibility of bad actors entirely. Infact the camera is used to enable bad actors instead of catching bad actors. Huge difference in my opinion but okay just shrug your shoulders and claim there’s no difference.
- BobaFloutist 5mo agoAnd, crucially, cops are expensive, so the percentage of drivers they can do this to is low. Whereas a stationary camera can scan the license plates of ~100% of cars that go past it and save that data for later fishing expeditions. And is cheap enough that we can (and have) blanketed roads with them.
- buzer 5mo ago> Illegal immigration is a misdemeanor not a felony. My understanding is that entering without getting inspected is misdemeanor (or felony in some cases), but that's often not the case. Usually people just overstay and that's civil case. And because it's treated as a civil matter a lot constitutional protections do not apply (to clarify: some still do).
- john_strinlai 5mo agothere are at least weekly threads on hn about why people dont want to live in a mass-surveillance state with an astronomical potential for abuse (and plenty of evidence of abuse already: see the flock employees watching kids gymnastics recently) pretending that it is only "pro illegal immigration" people that are against what happened here is misguided at best, or purposefully manipulative and bad faith
- MrBuddyCasino 5mo agoNo I get that. My impression is that the angle here is specifically not against Orwellian mass surveillance, but „the evil fascists at ICE use it too“ which I find hypocritical.
- pavel_lishin 5mo agoWhy is that hypocritical?
- MrBuddyCasino 5mo agoBecause if public video surveillance was only used for legitimate purposes, worked well and made everyone‘s life better as a consequence there wouldn’t be as much opposition to it. In practice this is not always the case. If every new proposed law to combat „child abuse“ was well intentioned and actually worked, there wouldn’t be much opposition either. But since they are mostly an underhanded tactic to censor the internet, there is. So to use this legitimate actually useful example of fighting illegal immigration leaves a very bitter taste.
- LocalH 5mo agoThe misuse of "child welfare" as a wedge for illegal legislation heavily predates the common use of the Internet. I remember Tipper Gore with music, Joe Lieberman with video games. I remember the "Satanic panics" of the 80s, which led my parents to forbid me from Dungeons & Dragons, because it was "evil" and "Satanic".
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago> it's shocking people wouldn't realize that It's really not. These systems are bought and paid for predominantly by local governments. Most of whom don't spend any resources on immigration enforcement. Some of which have policies prohibiting such co-operation.
- bubbi 5mo ago[dead]
- JohnMakin 5mo agoNo one is surprised, but the news is that Flock’s agreement with these pd’s said this was not happening and it’s now been shown it has.
- runjake 5mo agoIt's likely on the backend that this is "completely lawful" and was used for "lawful purposes" as deemed by the current US administration. There's probably even subpoenas on the backend. Flock is required to comply with "lawful" requests and seems happy to do so. This is largely the same for all major cloud camera operators. See also: Verkada and their facial recognition. These things are installed all over the place in public areas. And you think their facial recognition is compartmentalized to their specific tenant?
- ocdtrekkie 5mo agoIn the case of Illinois, this is not lawful, I'm not sure about the laws in Ohio, but if a village in Illinois buys a Flock camera and that data is accessible to ICE, than they have violated Illinois law. So they either need Flock to provide assurances that ICE cannot use the data, otherwise they have to remove the cameras entirely.
- kloop 5mo agoThat probably just means it's illegal for local governments to use cloud based cameras in Illinois
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago> probably just means it's illegal for local governments to use cloud based cameras in Illinois Probably not. A state can regulate how its own resources are used. It can't block a federal warrant.
- vkou 5mo agoIt can't stop a warrant but it can make it illegal to gather and retain data in a way that can be later retrieved by a warrant.
- 5mo ago
- mahmoudhossam 5mo agoAllegedly?
- cap11235 5mo ago[flagged]
- some_random 5mo agoYeah that's how news organizations have to frame things
- dragonwriter 5mo agoNo, its not. Randomly inserting “allegedly” where it doesn't belong isn't a requirement for news organizations, its sloppiness. Inserting it appropriately may be a requirement or at least a reasonable effort to avoid overstepping the facts (and avoid liability for things like defamation where overstepping would harm reputations), but this is not that. The source they are attributing the claim to did not say that the data was allegedly used, they said that the data was IN FACT used. Either of these headlines would be reasonable and accurate given the facts in the body: “Authorities say Flock cameras' data used for immigration enforcement” or “Flock cameras' data allegedly used for immigration enforcement” The actual headline is, OTOH, just plain wrong.
- righthand 5mo agoThank Hulk Hogan for that.
- thatcat 5mo agowho funded his lawsuit as a part of a lawfare campaign again?
- JumpCrisscross 5mo agoDoes Flock have a competitor who can undercut it on price and provide entirely local data storage and management (or a zero-knowledge cloud)?
- jancsika 5mo agoIf I understand correctly, a police query to Flock makes inferences from the set of all municipality/HOA/BigBogStore flock cameras. Or at least the ginormous subset who haven't opted out of the default settings that make Flock appealing to police in the first place. If your imagined competitor doesn't offer that feature, then how is it a competitor? If your competitor does offer it, then why would it even matter whether ICE gets access to inferences derived from the cloud vs. some federation of local storage devices?
- ocdtrekkie 5mo agoAny security camera product can do this, Flock is winning on having an integrated cloud solution with an all in once price that integrates with a lot of other law enforcement tools. You can put a camera on a pole with a cell router and enable the LPR plugin in your recording software pretty darn cheap. But you probably can't do that with a single subscription apart from Flock.
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago> Any security camera product can do this, Flock is winning on having an integrated cloud solution Flock provides a fire-and-forget service. The city contracts Flock, and then the cameras are put up and managed. I'm asking if anyone else does this without Flock's baggage.
- dayyan 5mo agoGood.
- JohnMakin 5mo agoThis should not be flagged. @dang
- tencentshill 5mo agoohio.news is not credible.
- JohnMakin 5mo agoOk? So change the URL to any number of credible sites that are reporting this same information: https://www.daytondailynews.com/local/dayton-suspends-license-plate-readers-says-data-used-for-immigration-enforcement/article_14a3f629-ac59-57cd-91e8-c53ed5619971.html https://www.daytondailynews.com/local/dayton-suspends-licens... I think it's fairly obvious why this got so aggressively flagged.
- tencentshill 5mo agoOhio dot news doesn't sound credible. Nothing on the About page. https://www.ohio.news/about/ https://www.ohio.news/about/. One email contact for statenewsdesk.com, the only indication about who might run this website. WHOIS entirely redacted. I'll assume it's a foreign influence operation until they put some names and faces out there.
- JohnMakin 5mo agoIf only people assigned such strict scrutiny to AI blogslop "news." From a 30 second google search shows plenty of other similar results: https://www.courierpress.com/story/news/local/2025/07/22/evansville-ai-flock-safety-cameras-immigration-enforcement-license-plate-trump-donald-crime-news/84508561007/ https://www.courierpress.com/story/news/local/2025/07/22/eva... https://www.wyso.org/news/2026-05-01/dayton-suspends-automated-license-plate-readers-after-egregious-data-sharing-violations https://www.wyso.org/news/2026-05-01/dayton-suspends-automat... https://www.daytondailynews.com/local/dayton-suspends-license-plate-readers-says-data-used-for-immigration-enforcement/article_14a3f629-ac59-57cd-91e8-c53ed5619971.html https://www.daytondailynews.com/local/dayton-suspends-licens...
- ChrisArchitect 5mo agoSource: https://www.daytondailynews.com/local/dayton-suspends-flock-license-plate-readers-says-data-used-for-immigration-enforcement/article_14a3f629-ac59-57cd-91e8-c53ed5619971.html https://www.daytondailynews.com/local/dayton-suspends-flock-... Other coverage: Dayton mayor demands accountability after plate-reader data breach https://www.wdtn.com/news/mayor-commissioner-demand-alpr-data-breach-accountability/ https://www.wdtn.com/news/mayor-commissioner-demand-alpr-dat...
- josefritzishere 5mo agoFlagged? It's genuinely market relevant that Flock is used so frequently for crime.
- cindyllm 5mo ago[dead]