It's likely on the backend that this is "completely lawful" and was used for "lawful purposes" as deemed by the current US administration. There's probably even subpoenas on the backend.

Flock is required to comply with "lawful" requests and seems happy to do so.

This is largely the same for all major cloud camera operators. See also: Verkada and their facial recognition. These things are installed all over the place in public areas. And you think their facial recognition is compartmentalized to their specific tenant?

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ocdtrekkie 5 hours ago | parent [-]

In the case of Illinois, this is not lawful, I'm not sure about the laws in Ohio, but if a village in Illinois buys a Flock camera and that data is accessible to ICE, than they have violated Illinois law. So they either need Flock to provide assurances that ICE cannot use the data, otherwise they have to remove the cameras entirely.

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dghlsakjg 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I suspect that the supremacy clause makes this a grey area.

Simplified: you can make something illegal locally, but federal law will almost always win out.

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ocdtrekkie 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Sure but the end result of that is simply that local agencies could not legally use this technology, not that they can just ignore local laws because the federal government wants them to. The federal government can maybe force Flock to turn over data, but local governments then cannot use Flock in accordance with Illinois law. In the case of Illinois, this is indeed causing some local governments to reconsider their Flock contracts.

	▲	dghlsakjg 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Well, not quite. The local governments are in compliance with state law until the feds use it for immigration enforcement. Then the supremacy clause takes over and more or less nullifies it. As long as it isn’t the local agency using it for enforcement, then they are in the clear. I think that Flock contracts are getting cancelled due to unpopularity, not because of compliance worries. Can you point to any actual cases where enforcement of the state law led to a termination of service?

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kloop 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That probably just means it's illegal for local governments to use cloud based cameras in Illinois

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JumpCrisscross 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> probably just means it's illegal for local governments to use cloud based cameras in Illinois

Probably not. A state can regulate how its own resources are used. It can't block a federal warrant.

	▲	vkou 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It can't stop a warrant but it can make it illegal to gather and retain data in a way that can be later retrieved by a warrant.

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5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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