As Benn Jordan has already pointed out to Congress directly, this isn’t just a Flock problem. It’s a problem with a complete lack of basic cybersecurity protocols for these devices.
If we ban just Flock, then the problem will migrate to other companies.
the problem is already migrating to other companies. in some places flock cameras are being replaced by the exact same shit run by another company.
Because a big problem with this Anti-AI/Anti-Invasion Camera movement, is to focus on one companies name rather than on the rights violations themselves.
It looks like they’re banning the tech, not the company
Good. This proposed act seems to ban all flock-style camera systems, not just the brand name. This should be a slam dunk for anyone who cares about privacy.
AXON, motorola is the other notable ones to produce less efficient version.
While it’s kind of a ban, to be extremely clear, this is not a direct ban!
This would prohibit federal agencies from using ALPRs or accessing data from them, and it would block federal funding for ALPR systems, but locally-funded systems would still be allowed:
https://www.gadgetreview.com/bernie-sanders-aoc-and-jeff-merkley-just-introduced-the-ban-flock-act
Also Flock collects and catalogs a whole lot more than license plates. On cars it can of course identify the make and model but it’ll also catalog things like bumper stickers and custom rims for that car.
For people it’ll assign and track your description better than a cop would. Race, clothes, hats…
While I think that trying to do something is admirable, Bernie and AOC fall short on not understanding the complexity of the technology on this one
We need a full ban on passive and dragnet surveillance, both from private and public entities.
On cars it can of course identify the make and model but it’ll also catalog things like bumper stickers and custom rims for that car.
I think the bill covers that. It additionally states that it’s anything that “identifies, locates, and tracks a vehicle through the license plate or other persistent visual identifier of the vehicle”
locally-funded systems would still be allowed:
Which is almost all of them.
Correct. This is more of a “sit down and shut up” motion, than anything actually meaningful.
So what it does is cut federal grants to cities/towns that still use them, meaning the impact is a lot larger than just no money for cameras. It could seriously cut infrastructure and healthcare funds, and anything else the federal government funds. I do agree this is not a perfect solution, but it’s absolutely a step in the right direction, and I’d rather get something on the books to slow the adoption while the perfect solution is in the works. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
It’s ok, they have USPS surveillance vans now
Which is, unfortunately, why this doesn’t have a good chance of passing. But I’d love to be proven wrong!
Just Flock, or even just traffic cameras? Is this even a start? How about banning warrantless border phone searches? How about recognizing that privacy is a right? The California constitution (and maybe other states) already does that, and it seems to help to some extent, despite the presence of Flock cameras here.
It’s just a block on Automatic License Plate Readers.
Some company will claim they are just recording descriptions of a license plate next and skirts around whatever law might happen (even if this has a near zero chance of happening.)
The interesting thing about this, and probably why it might succeed is:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/florida-county-found-11-mystery-173920372.html
So essentially, this opened a door for anyone to put up cameras where they feel like putting them.
Oh yeah I read that. There’s one here in the parking lot I go to the grocery store. It got moved to get a wider angle of the whole area, I might be a dumbass but I can see what they’re doing. These are those parking lot camera things. I’m sure they’ve been retro fitted.
Insane.
Yeah it’s alarming because there’s the protection the cameras, as in the videos we’ve seen of people just recording them getting harassed. And now we’ve quickly reached the point of no one knows concrete details. Then as someone who’s studying cybersecurity, which I will probably give up on honestly, to see how unsecured all of this is makes gear grind. This is like the riding the bike and putting a stick in the spokes meme kind of thing.
Inference is a thing.
Not government.
Only 3 (a minority) are unauthorized police installations. Police in the example in the article are going rogue likely with some tacit support.
What’s left?
Someone with time, money, utility trucks, experience in mounting cameras, someone with networking resources and experience to store and analyze data.
Who is that? This immediately excludes 99.99% of the population. We can infer, assuming the article is not fake news, it’s almost certainly a corporate entity or an estate of a very high net worth individual or family.
We can ask who has the motive and the capability not just to install many flagrantly illegal cameras but also to collect, analyze and use the information?
Mounting unaccountable cameras on public utility poles is an act of war. It’s not a foreign entity, because that would start a big stink if it were. That means almost cedtainly these are our local energy and labor extractors: corporates and/or billionaires (or otherwise very high net worth actors).
It’s kind of like rule 34; I don’t think it’s fake. Also I worked in government contracting for a bit. There’s good and cool stuff and then there’s not. Honestly, I’m not surprised. Realistically, it’s all Swiss cheese. At a certain point no one knows what’s going on.
I think there’s a lot more to it. And I mean there’s some sketchy shit, I discovered–personally yeh messa a nerd–L3 communications was monitoring internet traffic in the early 2000s. Which merged with L3 that makes EoTechs (holo sights). Both G contractors.
Needs to include a facial recognition ban.
Like any politician gives a shit about our rights. Wolves in sheep clothes!
Uh yeah, that ship has sailed, hit an iceberg, and sunk.
Performative bullshit. It only prevents federal use of the data
