6 ms·

Please correct my understanding if this is not the case... so the issue isn't the cameras themselves it's that you believe (and I am sympathetic toward) that th

by ericmay 2mo ago

Please correct my understanding if this is not the case... so the issue isn't the cameras themselves it's that you believe (and I am sympathetic toward) that they are easily searchable without a warrant and so it's something akin to a 4th Amendment violation? Less so to do with surveillance state which we might consider a separate issue? I mention that just because the surveillance state with just cameras could include consumer cameras, drones, highway traffic cams, the damn automated plate reader and tracking camera that gave me a $100+ ticket in London for driving through a congestion zone and... those bast.... and... (jk - well sort of it, I mean it is part of the group here) I'm not sure I'm on board with the efficiency argument but those are always interesting ones.

trevithick 2mo ago
There's also the matter of police accessing this massive data trove "for personal purposes, including tracking romantic partners, relatives or acquaintances." https://www.newsweek.com/flock-camera-police-arrests-12263782 https://www.newsweek.com/flock-camera-police-arrests-1226378...
ThrustVectoring 2mo ago
The privacy violation is that the database exists, full stop. I don't think a warrant requirement would be a meaningful barrier, since the data is already part of the camera network operators' database and all sorts of informal or backdoor agreements would easily happen. Like, all a warrant requirement does is make it so that the police have to talk to a judge before making the searched data part of the evidence against you. It would do nothing to stop the police from fabricating some other pretext to lawfully stop and investigate you - say, parking a police cruiser at the border into the state and whenever the ALPR in that car hits a list of vehicles, stop them for going 0.1 MPH over the limit and the officer says they smell weed.
- ericmay 2mo ago
  > The privacy violation is that the database exists, full stop. Is that because the government has access to the database? Aside from that I'm not really sure what the difference is between Flock in this case and something like a doorbell camera.
  - ThrustVectoring 2mo ago
    It's nefarious and privacy-violating when the database exists, government involvement just exacerbates things because private companies aren't allowed to send armed goons to your house and break down your door.
    - ericmay 2mo ago
      So my understanding was incorrect, you're against any recording including personal use, traffic cameras, security cameras on private property (for example at a jewelry store)?
      - ThrustVectoring 2mo ago
        I'm not sure why you're ignoring the central point I'm making about scale. One guy having a camera pointing out of his doorbell is different from Amazon being able to do whatever they want with the footage from something like one in five US homes. Systems are more than the sum of their isolated parts.
        ericmay 2mo ago
        I was trying to understand where your opposition was - the operator of the device, the number of devices, or perhaps who and how information was accessed. Maybe I should've been more direct. In your view, what is the appropriate usage for camera devices in public spaces?
        ThrustVectoring 2mo ago
        All public cameras are a cost to privacy for the benefit of the operator, its just that the identity of the operators and the extensiveness and data centralization change the magnitude of the cost and the proper response. If my friend has a doorbell camera and I don't like being recorded by him every time I visit his house, I can just not visit his house. Similarly, if Target has in-store surveillance cameras, I can just not shop there. If driving anywhere has me logged multiple times in Flock's network, I can't just stop driving, and even if I did they track pedestrians and bluetooth signals too. In short my opposition is to all of it, but some scenarios are clearly far worse for privacy than others. Doing something unusual that has your neighbors privately chuckling at their surveillance footage is less bad than doing something unusual that has Target's loss protection following you and making you feel uncomfortable, which is less bad than doing something unusual that has a police officer decide to "randomly" stop your car and attempt to search it, which is less bad than doing something unusual that has a SWAT team kicking down your door and arresting you.

by ericmay 2mo ago

trevithick 2mo ago

There's also the matter of police accessing this massive data trove "for personal purposes, including tracking romantic partners, relatives or acquaintances." https://www.newsweek.com/flock-camera-police-arrests-12263782 https://www.newsweek.com/flock-camera-police-arrests-1226378...

ThrustVectoring 2mo ago

The privacy violation is that the database exists, full stop. I don't think a warrant requirement would be a meaningful barrier, since the data is already part of the camera network operators' database and all sorts of informal or backdoor agreements would easily happen. Like, all a warrant requirement does is make it so that the police have to talk to a judge before making the searched data part of the evidence against you. It would do nothing to stop the police from fabricating some other pretext to lawfully stop and investigate you - say, parking a police cruiser at the border into the state and whenever the ALPR in that car hits a list of vehicles, stop them for going 0.1 MPH over the limit and the officer says they smell weed.

ericmay 2mo ago
> The privacy violation is that the database exists, full stop. Is that because the government has access to the database? Aside from that I'm not really sure what the difference is between Flock in this case and something like a doorbell camera.
- ThrustVectoring 2mo ago
  It's nefarious and privacy-violating when the database exists, government involvement just exacerbates things because private companies aren't allowed to send armed goons to your house and break down your door.
  - ericmay 2mo ago
    So my understanding was incorrect, you're against any recording including personal use, traffic cameras, security cameras on private property (for example at a jewelry store)?
    - ThrustVectoring 2mo ago
      I'm not sure why you're ignoring the central point I'm making about scale. One guy having a camera pointing out of his doorbell is different from Amazon being able to do whatever they want with the footage from something like one in five US homes. Systems are more than the sum of their isolated parts.
      - ericmay 2mo ago
        I was trying to understand where your opposition was - the operator of the device, the number of devices, or perhaps who and how information was accessed. Maybe I should've been more direct. In your view, what is the appropriate usage for camera devices in public spaces?
        ThrustVectoring 2mo ago
        All public cameras are a cost to privacy for the benefit of the operator, its just that the identity of the operators and the extensiveness and data centralization change the magnitude of the cost and the proper response. If my friend has a doorbell camera and I don't like being recorded by him every time I visit his house, I can just not visit his house. Similarly, if Target has in-store surveillance cameras, I can just not shop there. If driving anywhere has me logged multiple times in Flock's network, I can't just stop driving, and even if I did they track pedestrians and bluetooth signals too. In short my opposition is to all of it, but some scenarios are clearly far worse for privacy than others. Doing something unusual that has your neighbors privately chuckling at their surveillance footage is less bad than doing something unusual that has Target's loss protection following you and making you feel uncomfortable, which is less bad than doing something unusual that has a police officer decide to "randomly" stop your car and attempt to search it, which is less bad than doing something unusual that has a SWAT team kicking down your door and arresting you.