Flock Safety’s car-tracking cameras have been spreading across the United States like an invasive species, preying on public safety fears and gobbling up massive amounts of sensitive driver data. The technology not only tracks vehicles by their license plates, but also creates “fingerprints” of each vehicle, including the make, model, color and other distinguishing features.
Through crowdsourcing and open-source research, DeFlock.me aims to “shine a light on the widespread use of ALPR technology, raise awareness about the threats it poses to personal privacy and civil liberties, and empower the public to take action.” While EFF’s Atlas of Surveillance project has identified more than 1,700 agencies using ALPRs, DeFlock has mapped out more than 16,000 individual camera locations, more than a third of which are Flock Safety devices.
Flock Safety’s cease and desist later is just the latest in a long list of groups turning to bogus intellectual property claims to silence their critics.
Uh if the cameras are in public, they have no expectation of privacy, right?
Yeah but it’s a corporation. They get more rights than us humans.
There is a question on the constitutionality of automated surveillance technology, the type of data that is being collected, who has access to them, and how they are using it. Additionally, some other concerns I can think of off the top of my head are:
- Are the taxpayers funding this?
- Is my data being sold?
- If so, who is profiting?
- Where is supporting data showing this type of surveillance is needed?
- What demographical areas are these cameras more prevalent in? Aka are there a subset of peoples being targeted by this type of surveillance?
- What are the rules and regulations agencies need to follow with the data they capture with this tool?
We appreciate your well thought out and constructive comment, but the one you were replying to was about the cameras themselves not having any expectation of privacy, a reversal of the common excuse from the camera owners that your comment addresses.
Oh, definitely not what I thought or intended. Thanks for the heads up and kind reply. For clarity, I believe those cameras shouldn’t be installed or used, especially under this administration.
Aggregating location data is very different from having a picture taken in public, wouldn’t you agree?
If it was a person maybe. But these are objects. Objects have no expectation of privacy.
You may have misunderstood my comment. I was joking about Flock being mad at their cameras being tracked, by using one of the arguments for public surveillance.
I’m so fucking sick of this. We need to outlaw using third party companies to get around constitutional protections. Ending the third party doctrine is just another reason we desperately need a revolution.
On the site, they have a sign you can print out to put on or around the cameras. What sort of laws in my state or jurisdiction should I be looking at? Just want to see the legal implications.
As stated above the companies name is Flock Safety
And the CEO is Garett Langley
We recently prevented our city from contracting with flock. They had a city council meeting that was 50:1 opposed.
Target acquired
Most of the time I don’t worry about assassinations because I mostly avoid doing things that make people want to kill me. It’s a decent philosophy that has served me well for decades.
Luigi time?
Flock Safety’s cease and desist later is just the latest in a long list of groups turning to bogus intellectual property claims to silence their critics. Frequently, these have no legal basis and are designed to frighten under-resourced activists and advocacy groups with high-powered law firm letterheads. EFF is here to stand up against these trademark bullies, and in the case of Flock Safety, flip them the bird.
Everybody say it with me: 🖕
Link for the lazy
Thanks, that’s me!
Something something land of the free.
What are the legal implications of hosting this information in a different jurisdiction and are there places where this data would be legally protected?
They don’t even cite the datapoints, my friend. It is a trademark infringement cease-and-desist…
Thing is about trade marks… if the terms can be shown to be in common usage, the mark is struck down. Like Kleenex and Xerox.
So let’s all start talking about privacy invading cameras as being flocking stupid.
