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While I would oppose a city setting up CCTV to be used the way Flock is used - that would be orders of magnitude less bad than Flock. As it is, you can assume

While I would oppose a city setting up CCTV to be used the way Flock is used - that would be orders of magnitude less bad than Flock. As it is, you can assume that at the very least, every time your vehicle has passed one of the >100k Flock cameras, there's a database entry and a photo that will never, ever be deleted. Your full travel history from this point forward is available for a nominal fee, and without any regard for your privacy.

Manuel_D 4mo ago
Who says the city's retention period would be smaller than Flock? Furthermore, do you realize that you're free to photograph people in public and sell those images, no permission required: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nussenzweig_v._DiCorcia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nussenzweig_v._DiCorcia People seem to struggle to wrap their head around the fact that privacy laws don't prevent people from recording them in public. You can be recorded at any time in public, by the government or another private person.
- GrinningFool 4mo ago
  "Anyone can record you at any time in public" is vastly different from "a single entity is recording you over time and locations across the country/state/city"
- pesus 4mo ago
  > People seem to struggle to wrap their head around the fact that privacy laws don't prevent people from recording them in public. Maybe this needs to be restricted in some capacity, then.
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
- Ancapistani 4mo ago
  The city's scope is smaller than Flock's - it's a city, not a multi-national corporation. Yes, I'm aware of what "expectation of privacy" means. I've been a photographer for ~25 years. > People seem to struggle to wrap their head around the fact that privacy laws don't prevent people from recording them in public. You can be recorded at any time in public, by the government or another private person. This isn't about recording in public - it's about building a comprehensive dataset containing the movement and association history of the entire US population. Not only is that without a warrant, it's being collected prior to any accusation being made.
  - Manuel_D 4mo ago
    And how are they building that dataset? By recording in public. Yes it is about recording in public.
    - deleted 4mo ago
      [deleted]
    - picofarad 4mo ago
      Oh, well that settles it then. There's no point in arguing about it. It's okay to record in public, right? So it's fine. We should all be fine with Flock. What they're doing is perfectly fine and okay. Because it's okay to record in public.
      - deleted 4mo ago
        [deleted]
- _carbyau_ 4mo ago
  > You can be recorded at any time in public, by the government or another private person. Similar to "free speech", it is not as simple as that. Harassment and stalking among other things. I dare you to try hanging around a school with a DSLR taking pictures of kids in the playground and defend yourself with "But I'm in public!" Without going into the list of misdemeanors, generally the point is intent. If you take a picture, or ten, ostensibly of Times Square, no one cares. You can't piece together a person's day. The application of computing@scale (processing, storage, pattern recognition) changes the outcomes significantly. The hard to piece together day of the everyperson suddenly becomes a trivial query away. Whether that should be legal or not is quite rightly up for debate.
  - Manuel_D 4mo ago
    > I dare you to try hanging around a school with a DSLR taking pictures of kids in the playground and defend yourself with "But I'm in public." You'll probably get harassed by school staff and parents, but the police will have no grounds to arrest you. > If you take a picture, or ten, ostensibly of Times Square, no one cares. You can't piece together a person's day. Yes, you can. Private investigators often do exactly that.

Manuel_D 4mo ago

Who says the city's retention period would be smaller than Flock? Furthermore, do you realize that you're free to photograph people in public and sell those images, no permission required: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nussenzweig_v._DiCorcia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nussenzweig_v._DiCorcia People seem to struggle to wrap their head around the fact that privacy laws don't prevent people from recording them in public. You can be recorded at any time in public, by the government or another private person.

GrinningFool 4mo ago
"Anyone can record you at any time in public" is vastly different from "a single entity is recording you over time and locations across the country/state/city"
pesus 4mo ago
> People seem to struggle to wrap their head around the fact that privacy laws don't prevent people from recording them in public. Maybe this needs to be restricted in some capacity, then.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
Ancapistani 4mo ago
The city's scope is smaller than Flock's - it's a city, not a multi-national corporation. Yes, I'm aware of what "expectation of privacy" means. I've been a photographer for ~25 years. > People seem to struggle to wrap their head around the fact that privacy laws don't prevent people from recording them in public. You can be recorded at any time in public, by the government or another private person. This isn't about recording in public - it's about building a comprehensive dataset containing the movement and association history of the entire US population. Not only is that without a warrant, it's being collected prior to any accusation being made.
- Manuel_D 4mo ago
  And how are they building that dataset? By recording in public. Yes it is about recording in public.
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  - picofarad 4mo ago
    Oh, well that settles it then. There's no point in arguing about it. It's okay to record in public, right? So it's fine. We should all be fine with Flock. What they're doing is perfectly fine and okay. Because it's okay to record in public.
    - deleted 4mo ago
      [deleted]
_carbyau_ 4mo ago
> You can be recorded at any time in public, by the government or another private person. Similar to "free speech", it is not as simple as that. Harassment and stalking among other things. I dare you to try hanging around a school with a DSLR taking pictures of kids in the playground and defend yourself with "But I'm in public!" Without going into the list of misdemeanors, generally the point is intent. If you take a picture, or ten, ostensibly of Times Square, no one cares. You can't piece together a person's day. The application of computing@scale (processing, storage, pattern recognition) changes the outcomes significantly. The hard to piece together day of the everyperson suddenly becomes a trivial query away. Whether that should be legal or not is quite rightly up for debate.
- Manuel_D 4mo ago
  > I dare you to try hanging around a school with a DSLR taking pictures of kids in the playground and defend yourself with "But I'm in public." You'll probably get harassed by school staff and parents, but the police will have no grounds to arrest you. > If you take a picture, or ten, ostensibly of Times Square, no one cares. You can't piece together a person's day. Yes, you can. Private investigators often do exactly that.