Thread

1. hypfer · 1791066044 · focus · HN ↗

   > The deputy then used the woman’s travel history in Flock as part of the justification for searching her car, where he allegedly discovered 91 pounds of meth.

   That sentence does make this less of a win tbh, given that with it, it's just an actual example of the technology doing the job it is supposed to do.

   Like this, it's almost a trojan horse of something pretending to be PR for A, but actually being effective PR for B.

   1. ACCount39 · 1791068842 · focus · HN ↗

      A major issue with surveillance tech like this is that it actually works.

      It does what it's advertised to do: it lets the police track and catch criminals easier.

      This is especially meaningful in cases of crimes where either the information availability or the effort of tracking the criminal down often make enforcement prohibitive.

      If Flock had better PR people, they'd have no shortage of shoplifters, joyriders, car window smashers, porch poachers, carjackers and drug mules that were caught using their tech to parade around.

      It's just that this benefit comes at the cost of privacy being diminished for everyone.

      1. SonOfKyuss · 1791069683 · focus · HN ↗

         And they’ve carelessly put zero safeguards in place to prevent abuse and that is where all of their bad PR has come from. If a warrant were required for every query, it would be a completely different story

         1. ACCount39 · 1791070228 · focus · HN ↗

            No, it would be the same story. "Warrantless surveillance" is just a thing for people to latch on to that might be actually illegal about Flock.

            But people don't hate Flock because it's legally questionable. People hate Flock because they don't like a corporation spying on them and selling data to cops - regardless of how legal or illegal that is. The rest is downstream from that. People only ask "how is this legal" because they hate it already.

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