4 ms·

With all of the privacy concerns of Flock, at least in the interim it’s a useful honeypot for criminal law enforcement.

SlightlyLeftPad 2mo ago
Completely agree that there is a possible silver lining of exposing some of these. However, even if they get fired from this department, they often just get hired later by their buddies in the neighboring county.
- brazukadev 2mo ago
  > Police officer *arrested* after tracking ex-girlfriend on Flock over 2k times
  - SlightlyLeftPad 2mo ago
    What’s your point? The bar to arrest him is higher than the bar for termination so it’s highly likely he’ll be fired at the very least, especially if he’s charged. Also, more broadly, what I mentioned above is a general statement about firing/hiring practices after cases like this one.
- toomuchtodo 2mo ago
  Public records and databases available to citizens is a potential control against these folks getting hired again in positions of power and trust in the future (positions that warrant a greater level of accountability, imho). It is a form of append only public distributed trust ledger. Correlate such datasets against your local law enforcement staffing continually if their hiring criteria is suboptimal, using a combination of FOIA/FOIL requests and on the ground activism/investigative journalism. The IJ Database of ALPR Abuse - https://ij.org/the-ij-database-of-alpr-abuse/ https://ij.org/the-ij-database-of-alpr-abuse/ (181 incidents documented, as of this comment)
joshstrange 2mo ago
I have to assume this is just the dumbest of the criminals that are getting caught. I don't know why it takes 2K cases to determine "hey, this might not be above board...".
- wildzzz 2mo ago
  It's sounds like it was detected only after Flock turned on their AI auditor. Kinda concerning no one was looking at the data previously. Unless the target is the most slippery criminal mastermind and is evading police several times a day in broad daylight, 2000 searches by the same user is almost certainly an abuse of the system.
triceratops 2mo ago
They say that themselves: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49468552 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49468552
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
hulitu 2mo ago
> it’s a useful honeypot for criminal law enforcement. Only if they do it 2k times.

Completely agree that there is a possible silver lining of exposing some of these. However, even if they get fired from this department, they often just get hired later by their buddies in the neighboring county.

brazukadev 2mo ago
> Police officer *arrested* after tracking ex-girlfriend on Flock over 2k times
- SlightlyLeftPad 2mo ago
  What’s your point? The bar to arrest him is higher than the bar for termination so it’s highly likely he’ll be fired at the very least, especially if he’s charged. Also, more broadly, what I mentioned above is a general statement about firing/hiring practices after cases like this one.
toomuchtodo 2mo ago
Public records and databases available to citizens is a potential control against these folks getting hired again in positions of power and trust in the future (positions that warrant a greater level of accountability, imho). It is a form of append only public distributed trust ledger. Correlate such datasets against your local law enforcement staffing continually if their hiring criteria is suboptimal, using a combination of FOIA/FOIL requests and on the ground activism/investigative journalism. The IJ Database of ALPR Abuse - https://ij.org/the-ij-database-of-alpr-abuse/ https://ij.org/the-ij-database-of-alpr-abuse/ (181 incidents documented, as of this comment)

joshstrange 2mo ago

I have to assume this is just the dumbest of the criminals that are getting caught. I don't know why it takes 2K cases to determine "hey, this might not be above board...".

wildzzz 2mo ago
It's sounds like it was detected only after Flock turned on their AI auditor. Kinda concerning no one was looking at the data previously. Unless the target is the most slippery criminal mastermind and is evading police several times a day in broad daylight, 2000 searches by the same user is almost certainly an abuse of the system.

triceratops 2mo ago

They say that themselves: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49468552 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49468552

deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]

hulitu 2mo ago

> it’s a useful honeypot for criminal law enforcement. Only if they do it 2k times.