Flock worker calls 911 on TV reporter filming a public camera installation
Flock worker calls police on reporter filming public camera installation
Flock Safety's summer of backlash over its AI license plate readers took an ironic turn near Atlanta: when InvestigateTV reporter Brendan Keefe filmed a technician installing a camera on a public street, the worker called 911 and three police cars pulled Keefe over. Body camera footage shows the officer noting he wasn't breaking any laws. It's at least the second time this year a Flock worker summoned police on people recording in public.
So just to be clear, he's entitled to his privacy in a public place? Isn't that the whole argument that people are criticizing Flock for?
- tptacek
Random people calling 911 on other people filming them is a staple of Youtube; banks, coffee store workers, hairdressers, most especially restaurant managers. I don't know why anyone would expect technicians from Flock to be different. It's worse for the technician in this case, because he really was being followed --- that's not unlawful but it's unnerving.
You'd think from the response that this was like the VP/Sales of Flock Safety. But it's just some installer dude probably making $65k/year to climb poles and fasten cameras. I guess that's praxis for you though.
I think this is just a ragebait piece.
- jamesnorden
Flock (YC 2017) missing from title.
- delichon
If someone were following around and filming someone who was posting anti-Flock fliers, I would also feel that crosses into harassment after a certain amount of time.
A TV news crew filmed me when I was a freshman setting up my old travel trailer in a new university trailer park. I hated it, but it didn't last long. If they had continued following and filming indefinitely despite my protests, I would have wanted some kind of legal protection from them.
- Zeetah
Privacy for me but not for thee - Flock
- driggs
I love a good taste-of-their-own-medicine story like anyone else, but the headline is false.
It seems that this is about a YouTuber stalking a Flock employee's vehicle through traffic for 10-15 minutes, which is why the police were called.
- hamburglar
I think the long term solution to the privacy problem is going to be to switch to a vehicle marking system which can only be usefully used by law enforcement. Example, if instead of license plates you had a transponder that sends out encrypted metadata about the vehicle in a way that only law enforcement could decrypt it. Obviously there are still problems of abuse of law enforcement keys but it raises the bar significantly and it prevents private companies from building a business out of collecting the data.
You introduce a new problem, which is that eyewitness reports of crimes etc can’t identify the vehicles as easily, but that could be viewed as an acceptable loss. Or the problem could conceivably be solved with more technology if we can have dynamically changing license plates (which, again, require law enforcement keys to map back to a real identity for the vehicle).
The only other way I see is that we change laws so that a company like flock collecting this data and then offering it to the government is treated the same as if the government collected it itself. But now that the cat is out of that bag and there is big money behind it, I don’t really see it going back.
- driverdan
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49618447
- rfrey
I think if you're worried about being harassed by your neighbours if they find out what you do during the day, you should be thinking hard about what you do during the day.