Flock Safety CEO speaks out after LAPD suspends use of company's surveillance cameras

a month ago by fubarx to c/technology

Flock bills itself as a public safety technology company, using license plate reading cameras to help law enforcement investigate crimes and locate missing people. But critics see something else.
aramis87 135 points a month ago

"We've got to tighten up the policy and make sure everyone is aligned and then turn [the Los Angeles camera system] back on," [Flock co-founder and CEO Garrett] Langley said.

Sucks to be you, then, doesn't it.

"The technology is really simple," he told ABC7. "A car drives by, we take a picture. It's a static picture of a car, and then we read the license plate. That's what the technology is -- it's actually not that complicated, it's pretty simple."

Sure. Just the license plate. Which is why the ACLU says that you collect "make, model and color of a car, other identifiers like scratches and dents, and anything else they can see." It can include items "such as trailers, toolboxes, bumper stickers, or bike racks." That's why your cameras have audio detection hardware. That's why your cameras are on biking trails, where no cars will be found.

Then using data analysis like that in Finding Paul Revere reveals a bunch of information about your habits, your friendships, and your associations. But, sure, you have nothing to lose :/

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OhNoMoreLemmy 74 points a month ago

Oh it's much worse than that. 

https://www.404media.co/...

Cops have used Flock's FreeForm search feature to look for people with tattoos and wearing specific sport shirts, and searches sometimes include the target's race, according to data reviewed by 404 Media.

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ParlimentOfDoom 15 points a month ago

Didn't forget Bluetooth detection for device id tracking, as well as facial recognition for all that warrantless personal surveillance

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Sineljora 6 points a month ago

They have these pointed at children’s gyms. Eat Garrett Langley alive.

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takeda 3 points a month ago

They also track faces and can even report gender and race if their customer thinks that's useful information.

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blueworld 98 points a month ago

He's so full of shit: "The technology is really simple," he told ABC7. "A car drives by, we take a picture. It's a static picture of a car, and then we read the license plate. That's what the technology is -- it's actually not that complicated, it's pretty simple."

When in fact these use AI to build what the company calls a "Vehicle Fingerprint" to identify each car by make, model, color, body type, and distinguishing features like bumper stickers, roof racks, dents, decals, and even objects in truck beds. They can track and identify vehicles even when license plates are missing, obscured, or swapped for an 6-12 frame interaction. Moreover it is a database of metadata allowing them to characterize personality, trends, habits, and patterns across 80,000 cameras in 49 states. That's just the plate readers.

They've grown to include 'first responder' drones, audio sensors, gunshot detection sensors, and full video surveillance in both the public and private sphere.

And worse is it's real-time cross-jurisdictional alerting, which has seen multiple false reports.

So it's damn well not just a static picture of a car, but surveillance capitalism.

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RunningInRVA 24 points a month ago

I'm sure there is bluetooth device scanning occurring as well to identify individuals through their phones.

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CADmonkey 14 points a month ago

There are also scanners that detect the identifiers being broadcast by your TPMS system.

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Jason2357 18 points a month ago

The real danger has always been the database.

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Frenchgeek 4 points a month ago

How many of them are anywhere near his home?

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A_norny_mousse 53 points a month ago

Title sounds like Flock has somehow been wronged and is now "speaking out". I bet that's exactly how they want it. I also saw a Flock ad video that casually claimed to help against "terrorists, like AntiFa". Thanks, MAGA, this is now common.

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ParlimentOfDoom 7 points a month ago

Thiele is the reason Vance is VP. He's embedded in the maga movement, helping make those messaging decisions, not just following their norms

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IphtashuFitz 7 points a month ago

I know somebody who works at Flock. Any chance you have a link to that video? I’d love to see what he says about the CEO comparing Antifa to terrorists…

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Zahille7 20 points a month ago

I saw an Instagram reel of a guy protesting Flock by standing outside one of their offices and recording literally everyone that came on and out. A couple employees came out to him and told him they don't feel safe with him recording them, and he's just like "oh really? Now you know how it feels."

One of them looked like Andrew Tate.

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ooterness 9 points a month ago

If I found out a friend worked for Flock, they wouldn't be my friend anymore.

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IphtashuFitz 7 points a month ago

Unfortunately it’s not terribly easy to un-family somebody.

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GreenBeard 9 points a month ago

My condolences

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Rubisco 0 points a month ago path: 0 24927290 24928725 24934499 24934849 24940770, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 0
AbidanYre 3 points a month ago

They were recruiting like crazy when I was looking for work a couple years ago. I noped out hard after visiting their website and seeing what they were up to.

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Jason2357 51 points a month ago

When even the LAPD are too embarrassed to be using your shit.

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inmate_p01135809 41 points a month ago

Flock cameras are not LPR cameras. They are regular security cameras, with server-based AI. They even show demos to potential customers showing how the their product can search for specific people based on clothes, animal types, children/babies, strollers, carts, etc. across the entire country from one web-based interface. It's all very Orwellian and I don't think this issue either starts nor stops with Flock as a company. This type of surveillance is going to be ubiquitous regardless of what company(s) show up for making money from it.

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DanceMomsSavedMe 16 points a month ago

Yupp the only way out of this is being represented by people who look out for our interests and aren't afraid to stand up to these companies and pass laws about this.

So in other words, it will get worse forever and never be fixed.

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Mac 31 points a month ago

Fret not, friends. The cities going anti-Flock will simply will sign up with that other company that has an ALPR and Trump owns stock in and is partially owned by Blackrock: Axon

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Mikina 27 points a month ago

lol, "Flock Safety CEO" sounds the same as "Meta's Chief Privacy Officer".

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frongt 1 point a month ago

"Flock Safety" is the name of the company

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Mikina 1 point a month ago

Oooh

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XLE 1 point a month ago path: 0 24926112 24931598, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
FlashMobOfOne 14 points a month ago

Everyone with a brain cell predicted this when Flock began to become infamous earlier this year.

If your cameras are "AI-Powered" and collecting billions of data points on people, it's just going to equate to (at least) tens of thousands erroneous identifications due to the limitations of the software.

And that's unacceptable.

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PierceTheBubble 9 points a month ago

until we can get those data, privacy, security and sharing concerns ironed out through a contractual relationship

Trust me bro. These systems will never be abused by those managing the system: surely they couldn't give themselves access privileges, surely they couldn't remove data access records, surely individuals in positions of power would never modify, remove or share data out of self-protection, including their buddies' (assets)...

You're all just a little confused, you see: these video-capable cameras currently only record snapshots of vehicle identifiers, that happen to be registered to individuals, and might depict its driver and persons surrounding the vehicle. And don't give me any of that future hocus pocus of "video footage"; that doesn't exist actually, it cannot simply be enabled with a single over-the-air update...

These cameras, among the many others might, or might not keep a record of everything you do outside your home, and stack it on top of data harvested by other data aggregators; but we promise we won't look at it. Why aren't you smiling? It's by contract: we'll monitor compliance of both our self and our partner with a mutual interest. And uuuhp, no deliberate loopholes that we actively exploit.

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Tollana1234567 9 points a month ago

flock and safety, doesnt go together, its a mass surveillance using AI that haullcinates, profiles dissidents, ex-partners,,,etc.

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TIEPilot 8 points a month ago

lol they LAPD stopped using then (bs) but they are all still collecting data...

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