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239 points sodality2 | 3 comments | | HN request time: 1.917s | source

Built this over the last few days, based on a Rust codebase that parses the latest ALPR reports from OpenStreetMaps, calculates navigation statistics from every tagged residential building to nearby amenities, and tests each route for intersection with those ALPR cameras (Flock being the most widespread).

These have gotten more controversial in recent months, due to their indiscriminate large scale data collection, with 404 Media publishing many original pieces (https://www.404media.co/tag/flock/) about their adoption and (ab)use across the country. I wanted to use open source datasets to track the rapid expansion, especially per-county, as this data can be crucial for 'deflock' movements to petition counties and city governments to ban and remove them.

In some counties, the tracking becomes so widespread that most people can't go anywhere without being photographed. This includes possibly sensitive areas, like places of worship and medical facilities.

The argument for their legality rests upon the notion that these cameras are equivalent to 'mere observation', but the enormous scope and data sharing agreements in place to share and access millions of records without warrants blurs the lines of the fourth amendment.

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joecool1029 ◴[] No.46222961[source]
The county lists are wrong, at least they are for my state of New Jersey. We have 21 counties, not 27. Is it picking up the bordering counties that might have overlapping contracts or something?
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1. pavel_lishin ◴[] No.46223192[source]
One of those counties is Rockland, which is in NY. I wonder if it's counting bordering counties for states, since the assumption may be that the closest essential services for some Rockland residents may be in New Jersey.
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2. joecool1029 ◴[] No.46223281[source]
I know at least in Rockland's case, their power utility extends slightly into NJ. Can see it on statewide power outage trackers like this one: https://projects.nj.com/data/outagetracker/
3. sodality2 ◴[] No.46227173[source]
Ah! This looks like a bug with cross-border calculations. Ideally it would not show a Rockland County, NJ - it might cross state borders to perform calculations but they should all have a 'home state' that matches to the right county. Thanks for the example case, I'll work on a fix