6 ms·

Woman pulled over twice after Flock-linked software connected her to homicide

• thataccount 2mo ago
  The outrage level and desire to stop tech being used this way ought to be reaching a fever pitch rather than being a kind of unfortunate documentary of how it isn't working right.
  • Jtsummers 2mo ago
    People are vandalizing and tearing down Flock cameras. There is absolutely a strong response happening right now, not just documentation.
  • allthetime 2mo ago
    Facebook is flooded with Anti-Flock content and encouragement to cut them down right now. And the comments are overwhelmingly in support aside from the usual "if you have nothing to hide..." comments.
    • Barbing 2mo ago
      I wish e.g. browser fingerprinting were implemented with little red-eyed robots that physically watched your screen. Make software as creepy as you want, intangibly creepy, and there’s not enough for normal people to latch on to. (If I could only permaban one not sure whether I would choose Facebook or Flock)
  • giantg2 2mo ago
    Most people don't care as long as it doesn't affect them. You'd probably have to get to 10% affected for it to start mattering. Most people are happy to be ignorant.
• antibull 2mo ago
  [dead]
• Tostino 2mo ago
  I just spoke at my county commission meeting this morning, against these cameras, as they're debating putting 50% more cameras up across the county. The original set went up without any news coverage or fanfare. https://www.youtube.com/live/1OmEmpL-7qY?t=720&is=z_mb9ZEVCs3n37e5 https://www.youtube.com/live/1OmEmpL-7qY?t=720&is=z_mb9ZEVCs... Looks like I have two serious opponents to privacy on the commission to deal with, and the commissioner seems to at least want to end the contract. I have no idea where the other two members sit.
  • Simulacra 2mo ago
    Have you thought about running against them? Go get the paperwork, stand out in front of the post office and collect signatures.
    • Tostino 2mo ago
      Way too much money gets spent on local elections in this area, and just about everybody there is a legacy name of one sort or another. I'm also in the middle of my second startup, with a toddler. I can raise some hell though. Edit: I just (had claude) looked up how much was spent on each elected seat across the candidates, and for each of the 5 county commissioner's seats, the election spend between the candidates for that seat was an average of 250k. The wonderful lady in pink (salmon?), Mrs Starkey, has a bit of sway in the area: https://photos.app.goo.gl/WBPRWMduJ15k9Aj46 https://photos.app.goo.gl/WBPRWMduJ15k9Aj46
      • mywittyname 2mo ago
        Hand out pamphlets at the voting station with your name and, "I'll get Flock cameras removed." That's probably all you need to do. It depends on where you live, but some local offices are decided by as little as a few dozen voters.
    • bell-cot 2mo ago
      When's the next election for county commissioners, where are candidates running against them likely to come from, and is there any local vibe on the issue? Running yourself would be a whole lotta work. Fear that they'll soon be out of office should be ample incentive for the anti-privacy commissioners to suffer sudden changes of heart. Or if not - are there any energetic local reporters, who might dig up some evidence of Flock greasing palms?
• joshstrange 2mo ago
  > Technology is supposed to make police work faster and safer. Not sure I agree with the premise... > Most of the time it does. Citation needed > But every so often, a computer system hiccups, and an ordinary person ends up staring down the barrel of a gun for no reason at all. "Aww shucks, you know, bugs happen and sometimes guns get pointed at people because of them". Pardon my language but: What the actual fuck? How does a site write that with a straight face? Just absolutely trash reporting and the site doesn't allow for copy/paste to top it off. EDIT: And after reading further I can confirm this publication and author are not good at their jobs. The ending paragraph is absolutely absurd. This isn't reporting, this is just saying what the police and the victim said while throwing in line at the end saying maybe we need more oversight. This is bottom-of-the-barrel reporting and it make my blood boil for them to just shrug this off and make excuses for how the police acted here.
  • hamdingers 2mo ago
    > > Most of the time it does. > Citation needed This is the most damning part of the ALPR rollout for me. If cops were successfully using this technology they'd be beating that drum loud and proud at all hours.
    • joshstrange 2mo ago
      > If cops were successfully using this technology they'd be beating that drum loud and proud at all hours. See also anti-terrorism efforts. "Supporters" will argue they keep quiet about their successes for opsec-type reasons or to hide their methods. But we are perfectly happy to publicise blowing fishing boats out of the water so I don't believe that for a second. These people can't help but brag. No, these cameras are used to erode our rights and let police stalk their ex's/women/etc without consequences.
      • RajT88 2mo ago
        I used to know some govvies who were FBI analysts. There are more foiled terrorism plots than get reported for sure. That is the word at least at the FBI as of maybe 15 years ago.
• nemomarx 2mo ago
  Why did they need to have guns drawn and that many cops, even if the flag had been correct? A car involved in a homicide investigation doesn't mean it's even being driven by the suspect. It's not a positive ID at all
  • downrightmike 2mo ago
    The process is the punishment
  • Someone1234 2mo ago
    Same reason why so called "Swatting" is largely a non-issue outside the US: Police in the US are trained to respond to the hilt by default, and then lower their heavy-handed response later if they warrant it. Contrast that with most other countries, where police are trained to respond and only escalate based on the findings/as the situation unfolds. This training is supposedly for "officer safety." But being a police officer in the US isn't even in the top-10 most dangerous fields, and the vast majority of deaths are from traffic accidents or health issues while on the job (e.g. heart attack/stroke), not gun-related. So it is more likely a cultural issue within the profession.
    • M3L0NM4N 2mo ago
      Police in the US should respond to the hilt because the likelihood of the suspect being armed is significantly higher than any other country...
      • quietsegfault 2mo ago
        If it’s so dangerous, perhaps we should find a way to better control the danger of firearms.
        • Barbing 2mo ago
          Yes and in the meantime, respond with all available resources? (pretending my parents, wife, children are police officers and posting from that perspective, but do not like taste of boot nor Flock - just thinking logical on the ground procedure accounting for broken larger system)
• VariousPrograms 2mo ago
  The inaccuracy of our omniscient AI surveillance network isn't why I'm against it. The conclusion of this article is that we need more humans in the loop for a successful police state.
  • M3L0NM4N 2mo ago
    For successful policing*. Which everyone should be for. edit: Every single thing you guys have replied with are policy/law debates, not enforcement debates. I disagree with many laws on the books today. I want the laws changed, not selective/arbitrary enforcement of them.
    • EGreg 2mo ago
      Or else! “Sir, we are coming by today because we are concerned you are insufficiently supportive of our public servants in uniform. It has come to our attention that you have been disparaging some members of our law enforcement divisions to groups as large as 100 people! This is part of our new thought policing initiatives, we need everyone to support our policing efforts!” “Yes, I work for Flock Online. We only index statements posted at publicly accessible URLs, which in principle anyone can see. We are able to profile every person at scale for a more effective community policing database. This new thought policing initiative is being carried out as a public-private partnership with the full support of your county’s representatives, as a way to preserve our community’s harmony and enhance social cohesion.” “Please don’t be alarmed, the AI flagged you but I assure you, this is a real human in the loop wanting to talk to you about your comments. I am here because we know you’d be home around this time. Can you please come down to the station with us?”
      • M3L0NM4N 2mo ago
        This is not an issue with bad policing, but bad policy.
        • EGreg 2mo ago
          The policy is: Everyone should be for successful policing. We just want the enforcement of this policy to be maximally successful! What’s wrong with that :-)
• dghlsakjg 2mo ago
  Like many things in American policing, this could easily be fixed by ensuring real consequences and penalties for fuckups like this. Incentives guide actions, and there is no incentive not to keep repeating the same negligent mistake. What officer in Milwaukee left a dead notice in the system even after there was one false positive, and what happened to him (I would be willing to bet actual money that the answer is nothing). Who set up the system in Brookfield that allows them to accidentally pull a gun on someone innocent for the exact same reason they pulled a gun on that exact same person a few days earlier. There is no other profession where you can get away with repeated identical negligence like this. The reason for that is in almost every other profession, negligence is a liability for the parties involved. In policing it is a liability, but not for the negligent person or department.
• Animats 2mo ago
  That's not a Flock error. That's a law enforcement error. Flock isn't responsible for a bogus warrant in the system. The woman probably has a good case for damages from the police department for doing it twice. That's sloppy police work.
  • cdrnsf 2mo ago
    How often are police actually held accountable for anything?
    • fluidcruft 2mo ago
      Likely never again with this Supreme Court.
    • NewJazz 2mo ago
      The municipalities that employ them are held accountable (and often prevented by unions from firing them).
  • shimman 2mo ago
    No this is bad logic. Flock is absolutely responsible and they should not be releasing or selling products that are this poorly made. Saying that the responsibility is only on the user is extremely myopic. It's also dismissing the role Flock has in how they make and design their software. If they can't handle this maybe they should be disbanded as a company or nationalized for better public control.
    • fluidcruft 2mo ago
      The flock cameras were clearly misused. Misuse is 100% user error.
      • shimman 2mo ago
        Then you should design systems to ensure this type of user error doesn't happen. I'm sorry but this is software and all these excuses are straight up pathetic. If you don't know how to design a system to prevent this, DON'T MAKE IT! Good grief our industry is absolutely pathetic with these excuses.
• jMyles 2mo ago
  The institution of police has run its course and is time to deprecate. Flock cameras... I mean, look: our society, without any central organization at all, has the capacity to record nearly every crime that occurs, just by dint of our camera phones and private surveillance systems. So Flock really just gives the police more information, creating a an asymmetry with the rest of society. Given that we can already record all that we need to, and call for help from each other at a moment's notice, what good can police do for the next few centuries? And what possible hope is there that it will outweigh the bad?
• Razengan 2mo ago
  The real irony is how Americans still claim to be much better off than outright authoritarian states like China.
  • platinumrad 2mo ago
    We're speedrunning all of the worst parts of China, except privatized and we're not even going to get some nice trains or cheap housing out of it.
• arun6582 2mo ago
  Police were like this before glitches
  • giantg2 2mo ago
    I agree. Legal protections and policy changes would be needed to reduce incidents like this, regardless of mass surveillance.
• skullone 2mo ago
  Add the flock CEOs license plate to the system, lets see how he likes it
  • Barbing 2mo ago
    He’d love a chance to have a reason to start marketing bodycams on sticks you strap over and above your back. He gets pulled over, links the cops to his timestamped cloud-attested footage from his 24/7 third-person view cam proving his innocence, and drives to the office to promote how constantly recording everyone including ourselves just makes everything safer.
    • lotsofpulp 2mo ago
      There are probably thousands of easily searchable videos showing police lying about circumstances and facing no consequence. The CEO of Flock does not need to convince people to record things for proof of their point of view, the judicial system provides plenty of motivation. There are also plenty of videos of drivers scamming others by cutting in front of them and suddenly stopping. All the way up to organized crime. Obviously, you are going to want to spend a couple hundred dollars on cameras and memory cards to prevent yourself from being a victim. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/04/20/the-car-crash-conspiracy https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/04/20/the-car-crash-... Another common one is for dog owners to be able to prove someone else’s dog attacked theirs, so there might be a chance of recouping veterinary costs. Finally, I don’t see why all daycares should not have cameras. As a parent, I want to know that the employees handling my kids are being monitored, at least by management, if not the parents. The kids cannot speak up for themselves, why would we not want to ensure there is proof of abuse or neglect if it happened?
  • giantg2 2mo ago
    It's probably in there with a note to let him go free.
  • monksy 2mo ago
    There needs to be a public site that surveils and broadcasts (from public support) the private and public lives of officers, government officials, and Flock/Axon. For everyone's safety.
• ratelimitsteve 2mo ago
  One of my favorite parts of people wanting to hand power to AI is the way that it very obviously doesn't fucking work.
• throw7 2mo ago
  "an employee simply forgot to remove it." And? That's all? This is why no one wants the gov't. to run things.
• deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
• xyzsparetimexyz 2mo ago
  Literally worse than the mass surveillance system in China lmao
• tamimio 2mo ago
  > Flock camera, an automated system that scans license plates > Flock cameras work by reading plates and comparing them against active alerts False, flock cameras are car identification and fingerprinting devices, they would ID your car even if you don’t have a license plate at all. > A tool built to keep communities safer This should be put as a quote taken from the corporate BS, because obviously it didn’t make any community safer > As for the rest of us, it is a good reminder that these cameras are everywhere now Trying to normalize a police state, is this journalism now or straight up paid shills?!
• 0n0n0m0uz 2mo ago
  I am sure the government will not abuse this powerful technology
• andybak 2mo ago
  I get tired of saying this but "got misidentified by the police" is somewhere between an annoyance and a humourous anecdote in most developed countries that aren't the USA where it appears to be justifiably regarded as a near death experience.
  • paimapi 2mo ago
    a significant portion of police training literally teaches them to fear your regular citizen. they're taught that anybody may be armed and they face the chance of death at every traffic stop and are shown dashcam footage of the worst incidents where this did happen without the probabilistic context see https://revealnews.org/podcast/what-cops-arent-learning/ https://revealnews.org/podcast/what-cops-arent-learning/
    • NewJazz 2mo ago
      To touch on the probabilities, they're probably more likely to die getting side swiped by a car, than getting shot by the person they're stopping.
    • actionfromafar 2mo ago
      Community policing, it aint.
  • Markoff 2mo ago
    I dunno, this is Czech police approaching scammer on the phone, not sure why they need to throw even scammer on the ground. I would not consider this mild annoyance or humorous anecdote if pigs threw me on the ground. Video in article - the white hoodie boy is innocent https://www.novinky.cz/clanek/krimi-policiste-se-omylem-vrhli-na-mladika-v-praze-zatimco-je-tahal-za-nos-falesny-banker-stojici-opodal-40580165 https://www.novinky.cz/clanek/krimi-policiste-se-omylem-vrhl...
• 0n0n0m0uz 2mo ago
  I am sure the government will not abuse this powerful technology. I actually believe SCOTUS will eventually try to reign in although not eliminate the scope of what this tech can do under the constitution
• MrToadMan 2mo ago
  Also worth watching John Oliver’s segment on this topic on Last Week Tonight (https://youtube.com/shorts/BAEjOAe948k?si=Lfkw6prZxHk2R-I2 https://youtube.com/shorts/BAEjOAe948k?si=Lfkw6prZxHk2R-I2) Includes an example of a Flock camera flagging a number plate that the police pulled over, a family car SUV believing it to be stolen, but the stolen vehicle was actually a motorcycle with the same plate number but a different state!
• tezo_cooper 2mo ago
  This happened while I was up in Maine - friend had purchased a used vehicle with all the paperwork earlier in the day. Both parties happy, somehow flock wrongly flagged the vehicle as "stolen" and dispatched police without any probable cause or ask from the buyer or seller. This is completely NOT ok.
• jmward01 2mo ago
  We shouldn't be wasting time figuring out how to make these tools usable. A healthy society requires privacy and a healthy society leads to long term safety trends. Mass surveillance as a tool, fundamentally, even if perfectly implemented and used, is fundamentally flawed and unfixable since it destroys the long term health of society. That is why I am against Flock and similar technologies.
  • cwillu 2mo ago
    Hear hear.
  • cpill 2mo ago
    oh yeah, America is a "healthy society".
• throwitaway222 2mo ago
  The FUTURE is Glitch.
• fedpost 2mo ago
  I watch a lot of body cam stuff. The number of videos of police executions starting with "flock cameras identified..." is rising rapidly
• cantalopes 2mo ago
  Creeping normality
• jdelman 2mo ago
  Some surveillance is necessary for justice, but it is very readily abused in the US.
• firefoxd 2mo ago
  I parked in a mall when someone stole my plate and replaced it with one from a stolen car. The next day, my brother, brand new in the country, borrowed my car to go to his first job. He was surrounded with dozens of LAPD cars, held at gun point in the middle of a boulevard and dragged through the mud in his first day work clothes. He tells me the only thing that saved him that day for not getting shot was not having the vocabulary to ask questions or explain himself. He was kneed, arms twisted, humiliated, then tossed in the back of a cruiser. Our car was a white infiniti. The stolen car was a black honda. When the cops get information there is zero investigation. It's "we got him!" And act immediately. It's like having a giant llm generated PR and you just comment "lgtm" and merge, only someone's life is on the line.
  • grepex 2mo ago
    This is my biggest fear for the law enforcement officers. They're becoming overdependent on these technology tools and forgetting to do actual police work. I say this as a former police officer myself.
• tptacek 2mo ago
  This is exactly why we took our cameras down in nearby Oak Park in Chicagoland. People talk online as if this is a Flock technology issue, but it only peripherally is. The core problem is that the hotlist systems states set up were never intended for real-time enforcement; there's a great deal of imprecision in them that tends not to matter in human-scale enforcement, but matters a great deal when enforcement is automated. This distinction is important because there's basically not much Flock can do about it. The source of truth about which cars should be curbed isn't Flock's and can't be Flock's; it's core law enforcement data that belongs to and is the responsibility of the state. Companies like Flock can presumably rig up Rube Goldberg devices to double-check and cross-check hotlist data, but their goals are in tension: they have a window of just minutes to detect and interdict a car. Our police department pledged to do voice confirmations on these hits, and everyone knew that wasn't going to work. In our specific case, we curbed more innocent vehicles than stolen ones (though not at gunpoint). In each bogus case, Illinois LEADS had left a car recorded "stolen" weeks after it had been "recovered"; "recovered" in scare-quotes because many (most?) of these cars were never stolen to begin with, but rather driven off by a relative without notice. More context on why these data sources are unsuited for real-time enforcement! Unfortunately, every law enforcement ALPR deployment in the country is a dragnet for all curb-able offenses, from stolen cars to failure-to-appear warrants (the plurality of arrests under our system, which turned our police force into municipal debt collectors for neighboring suburbs). The starting point for mitigating this problem would be to drastically reduce the set of offenses you alert on --- and that's tricky, because your instinct is to reduce them to the most serious offenses, but what you really need is the set of offenses least likely to result in false positives. We settled on "stolen license plate" (no innocent explanation) before giving up on the endeavor entirely.
• fedpost 2mo ago
  The system needs built in back pressure against these events. Not just "police accountability" but also a defined system were fuckups like this are expensive organizationally so that the organization has an incentive to prevent them. Something like if you're subject to detention that turns out to be unwarranted you automatically get cash straight out of the police budget. Same deal with having weapons pointed at you. This also helps provide restitution to victims who would otherwise just be screwed out of their time and legal defense fees
• Barbing 2mo ago
  Downweighted(?) post: off front page to third, down to rank 89 at +3hr, 205 comments, 232 points. Perhaps considered followup or to avoid too much Flock on homepage.
• duxup 2mo ago
  These kind of "computer said you did something" stops and such are absurd. There's no defense, computer said you did it so now you're subject to having guns drawn on you and so on. https://imgur.com/mwJpsij https://imgur.com/mwJpsij
• offordscott 2mo ago
  New police records reveal there’s more to the Amber Newell/Flock story than a simple “camera glitch.” Milwaukee police used 30 days of Flock location history to identify her vehicle’s travel pattern, positioned officers along its predicted route, conducted a high-risk stop, and seized the vehicle as homicide evidence. Ten days later, after the vehicle had apparently been returned, an outdated alert led Brookfield police to stop it again at gunpoint. https://www.reddit.com/r/1A_Auditor_Summit/comments/1vx3mbw/the_stale_alert_was_only_part_of_the_story_mpd/ https://www.reddit.com/r/1A_Auditor_Summit/comments/1vx3mbw/... The big unanswered question: How did a vehicle go from police evidence custody back onto the road without the law-enforcement alert being cleared? We’re continuing to request the Flock audit trail and alert history to find out.