3 ms·

Fundamentally this is silly because Flock only tracks cars and not individual people. It doesn't do facial recognition surveillance. Society decided a long time

• vsviridov 17d ago
  It can track devices via their Bluetooth radiation. A lot of devices use randomized MAC addresses though, but probably not all.
• deleted 17d ago
  [deleted]
• some_random 17d ago
  There is a societal consensus that driving is a privilege which can be restricted or revoked, not that you give up your rights by driving. In fact the opposite is true, the courts have found that drivers have fourth amendment rights for instance.
  • cm2012 17d ago
    I agree that Flock and other license plate readers should be regulated. Law enforcement should be logged and have rules for how and when they can access these records. What I would strongly disagree with is the idea that flock and license plate readers are unconstitutional and should be banned.
  • Manuel_D 17d ago
    Drivers have a right not to have their car searched without probable cause. But being photographed in public is not a search.
    • text0404 17d ago
      Those photographs go into a searchable database.
      • Manuel_D 17d ago
        And?
        • text0404 17d ago
          ... and you need a warrant to surveil individuals? And they have to be suspected of crimes?
          • Manuel_D 17d ago
            You don't need a warrant to record people in public. You keep throwing around the term "surveil" as though this is a singular activity. Do the police need a warrant to search your house or car? Yes. Do they need a warrant to get Google to hand over your Gmail contents? Yes? Do they need a warrant to photograph the exterior of your house? No. Do they need a warrant to photograph you in public? No
            • text0404 17d ago
              You keep missing that these aren't singular photographs. This isn't the 70s: these are persistent systems that aggregate video and photographs of everyone, tracking their movements over time. That is enough to make this constitutionally distinct from a cop taking a single picture of your house.
              • Manuel_D 17d ago
                And? These are still videos of people in public. This information is in plain view. You keep insisting that if you aggregate public information it somehow becomes private information, but that's not true unless the Supreme Court makes some new precedence-setting decision.
                • text0404 17d ago
                  That precedence-setting decision would be Carpenter v US [1], which established that being in public does not automatically eliminate all fourth amendment protection, and the comprehensive nature of government surveillance can matter constitutionally. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_v._United_States
• tavavex 17d ago
  Tracking vehicles lets you strongly infer who's driving them. Individual people have already gotten into trouble over their vehicles being spotted by Flock. If it could not be used to track people, the technology would be almost useless. Just because driving is a privilege (it's more of a requirement in the US, but the US at large doesn't really understand coercion) doesn't let you do anything you can come up with to people possessing that privilege.
• rc5150 17d ago
  "Flock only tracks cars and not individual people." prove it.
• tencentshill 17d ago
  They do track people and their systems are capable of searching by identifiers including skin color and clothing. You are either disingenuous or not informed enough to discuss this issue. It's even actively advertised as a feature: https://www.flocksafety.com/products/flock-freeform https://www.flocksafety.com/products/flock-freeform https://www.404media.co/how-cops-use-flock-to-track-people-not-cars/ https://www.404media.co/how-cops-use-flock-to-track-people-n...