Deflock hits 100k ALPRs Mapped in USA(deflock.org) |
Deflock hits 100k ALPRs Mapped in USA(deflock.org) |
I think that's mostly it. Basically since Flocks only use is for the systematic tracking of people for use by police and government agencies, it's a lot easier to get people to turn against it. There's just no upside to them that any individual would ever benefit from.
It's sad because if/when Flock dies the death of deserves, the software/infrastructure will likely just get sold off and reapplied to some other deployment scheme like Ring quietly forgoing the big Superbowl Ad.
On the other hand, come to think of it, despite OWS being broken up by fancy new approaches ( rumor has it, Walls Street got spooked enough to see what effective methods can be employed given that Pinkerton approach would have been frowned upon then ), I don't recall FBI marking the participants in any special way ( please correct me if I am missting anything ).
It doesn't matter how thoughtful you are, someone else will be thoughtless for you.
But overall, being tracked by your _own_ device feels different than being tracked by somebody else's device. Especially when taxpayer dollars are being used for that other device.
If so, I'll stop using them. If they just happen to need cameras, that's fundamentally different.
wait until you hear about EU's EES
Put energy into legislation. Ring and Nest already do the same thing.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/07/ring-reveals-they-give...
Home Depot from now on.
- good publicity (drivers know that speed cameras exist)
- density (high chance of passing a speed camera)
- enforcement of penalties (if fines can be ignored then they lose their deterrent effect)
- portable (so you don't know where they are ahead of time)
There's no warrant and often no real oversight. Normally police need a judge's permission (a warrant) to track someone. Flock can let them search where your car has been without that step, which is why people call it "warrantless surveillance." And it's been misused: several towns like Oshkosh and Appleton canceled their Flock contracts over privacy concerns and several incidents of misuse by law enforcement.
You don't control the data, and the rules can change. This is a big one. When Brookings agreed to install the cameras, the city was promised it would own the data, that retention would be temporary, and that Flock would not sell the information, with the contract stating Flock does not own and shall not sell customer data. Then in February 2026 Flock rewrote its terms, granting itself a perpetual, irrevocable license to use and disclose all customer data, and deleted the promise not to sell that data. So data collected about you can outlive the promises that were made when the camera went up.
https://www.wbay.com/2026/05/12/local-communities-cancel-flo... https://www.brookingsregister.com/2026/05/22/letter-to-the-e...
And another thing to note is that it goes way beyond just reading license plates. It's building a profile and lets them search based on it. It captures things like bumper stickers and what the people in the car look like.
Speed cameras don't have to enable mass surveillance. The oldest ones are detect a speeding object and take two photos at a fixed interval. Cars that aren't speeding aren't recorded.
Do they talk about the time lost to RTCs?
How much time do you "lose" due to speed limits?
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46990619 (citations)
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46864405 (citations)
I expect Dems to be better on privacy in this context ("We don't need ALPRs because privacy is more important than faux threats conjured up to sell corporate surveillance to the masses for institutional shareholder returns") because you're more likely to be fear driven as a Republican/conservative (and therefore, support invasion of privacy via ALPRs despite facts and statistics around the risk) due to a larger amygdala (where fear processing takes place) [3] and amygdala–BNST connectivity [4], but of course some Dems will disappoint on this policy topic. You might even be able to suss out confidence in policy implementation using photos of candidates [5], which can predict political orientation (and therefore, brain structure).
[3] Kanai R, Feilden T, Firth C ... Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults Current Biology, 2011; 21, 677-680 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2011.03.017
[4] Pedersen WS, Muftuler LT, Larson CL. Conservatism and the neural circuitry of threat: economic conservatism predicts greater amygdala-BNST connectivity during periods of threat vs safety. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2018 Jan 1;13(1):43-51. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsx133. PMID: 29126127; PMCID: PMC5793824.
[5] Kosinski, M., Khambatta, P., & Wang, Y. (2024). Facial recognition technology and human raters can predict political orientation from images of expressionless faces even when controlling for demographics and self-presentation. American Psychologist, 79(7), 942–955. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001295
Mental model: I am sure of nothing. All models are wrong, but some are useful. Better to have a plan and not need it than need it and not have it. Hope alone is not a strategy.
[1] https://emersoncollegepolling.com/april-2026-national-poll/
As you like to quote, "demographics is destiny".
To note, we did not get here from arbitrary power; we got here due to partisan failure of checks and balances in Congress and SCOUTS. But, to your point, I believe changes will be made to prevent this failure scenario in the future.