Dissecting Flock Safety: The Cameras Tracking You Are a Security Nightmare [video]

These cameras are showing up everywhere in my state. It's creepy. I had no idea what they were, and now suddenly they're at every intersection, gas station, you name it.

I don't like that the government is tracking everyone's movements so openly. I knew they were doing this with cell phone data, but that wasn't so brazen.

Here in Austin, the city council no longer allows Flock ALPR's (automated license plate readers) on city streets, but Home Depot and other businesses still use them in their parking lots, and they scan your vehicle license plate every time you enter and exit the premises. Flock sells its data to ICE and law enforcement.

As the CEO of Flock, don't you feel you have more information to offer this community outside of the "we do not sell data" statement you've made over and over? The fact that you do not engage here in the ethical aspects of your product doesn't look good for you and only deepens suspicion that something darker is going on behind your doors.

This is totally disingenuous.

You are selling tools that have zero upside and a lot of downsides and that are used for structural violation of the privacy of citizens. Don't hide behind that you're trying to help people stay safe, that is not what you are doing and if you believe that you can take credit for the upsides then you really should take responsibility for the downsides.

The problem isn't zero upside, as other commenters have pointed out. The cameras have legitimate, lawful, and useful purposes. You will not gain any traction with the public or with lawmakers as long as your arguments ignore that reality.

The problem is that the downside is unbounded.

We clearly don't have the control over our governments, in either direction or degree, that would be needed to ensure that the unbounded downside of ubiquitous networked cameras won't manifest itself.

What's the upside then, since it is so clear to you? Show me the stats on how these cameras actually reduced crime instead. Because to me they only show a possible decrease in one form of crime and a guaranteed increase in another.

Looking at your user page, I don't imagine you park your car on the street, do you? A lot of people have to. When (not if) it gets vandalized or stolen, it's nice to be able to identify the perpetrators and hold them to account.

Of course the rest of the justice system has to be firing on all cylinders to make that happen... but still, when you're a crime victim, more information is better than less.

> Looking at your user page, I don't imagine you park your car on the street, do you?

Yes, I do. And I've even had one stolen. And even that isn't enough to persuade me that putting cameras everywhere is going to make us safer. People are scared of their own shadow, it makes zero sense. Theft and other crime is as old as humanity, it is a delusion to think that living in the panopticon is going to make you save from small crime. But what it will do is enable much bigger crimes.

As far as my car: we have this amazing thing called insurance. And they were most reasonable when my car was stolen and yes, I'm still pissed off about it. But cameras would not have stopped that.

Car theft tends to be perpetrated by a small number of repeat offenders. Cameras would indeed have helped in your case... but only if they were installed in the last neighborhood where the thieves were active, if the police used the evidence to track them down, if the prosecutor's office used the evidence to charge them, and if the courts used the evidence to lock them up.

Admittedly those are all big leaps of faith around here, where car thieves are handled on a catch-and-release basis and where we usually don't even bother with the 'catch' part. You could argue that law enforcement doesn't need any new toys if they don't use the ones they already have, and I certainly wouldn't disagree with that.

I think a lot depends on who owns and controls the cameras. I'd object to ALPRs being installed in my rural neighborhood, certainly. But I see little other than upside in private security cameras whose footage I can choose to share with the police, or with anyone else for that matter. Which is why that's what I have.

At the same time, cameras in urban settings are much less scary and offensive to me for some reason, partially because I disagree that anyone has any expectation of privacy in such settings, and partially because I believe that ship has sailed and anyone bothering to object is just wasting their breath.

The best we can hope for is aggressive public oversight of such cameras. The company itself can't be expected to show any leadership in that area; it has to come from us.