It’s not clear to me that it is actually your data. If I take a picture of you in a public place, I own the picture, not you.

But maybe I am unclear on how Flock works.

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throwway120385 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You also might not be considered a commercial entity under the law. It's a bit more nuanced and the words written in a particular statute have to be interpreted together. So statements about "commercial entities" have to be limited to such entities even if we'd really like to be able to go to our neighbor's house and ask them to delete all of the surveillance they have of our cars driving up and down the street in front of their house. I think these laws are often narrowly written to avoid unintended consequences like de-facto banning private operation of surveillance systems on private property.

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pksebben 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Isn't flock's whole thing that they extract information from the pictures they have?

Like, say I have an interview in your office and you step out for coffee. I take a picture of the applicant list on your desk. That doesn't make the list of applicants "my data".

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lotsofpulp 4 hours ago | parent [-]

>I take a picture of the applicant list on your desk. That doesn't make the list of applicants "my data".

If the list is sitting there out in the open, then yes, it does make it your data.

	▲	throwway120385 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Well, maybe not. A reasonable person might not think that about that applicant list. I bet you could make a different argument for taking a picture versus memorizing the list too. The legal system thrives on specifics of a situation, so simply asserting that the list of applicants is or is not "yours" because you can see it seems like a gross oversimplification. The specifics of how you came to be there, what your relationship with the officeholder is, and so on probably matters a lot in that situation and I think there might be some unwritten rules or social norms that you'd be expected to follow as well.

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bjt 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Setting aside Flock, the "ownership" situation is not as clear as you say above.

What you own is the image copyright. But the right to copy is only one of the rights at issue.

Under various state laws (California in particular), you might not be entitled to do all the things with that picture that you could do of one that doesn't have my likeness. Privacy laws like the CCPA are one possible carve-out. A "right of publicity" is another.

There's an old saying about property law that "property is a bundle of sticks". The bundle can be subdivided.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/publicity