Flock can make all the promises it wants, but the reality is that once growth stalls out on camera installations, which it must, shareholders will immediately insist that they pivot into other monetization schemes. There aren't really any laws holding them back, just their already weasel-worded contracts that they could easily renegotiate once the police departments are putting pressure on the city/county/state/federal legislative bodies.

The possibilities are endless:

  - Is your employee visiting your competitors?
  - Where has your husband/wife/lover been?
  - What medical buildings has this person been to?
  - Does this person go to churches / gun ranges?

▲ ClarityJones 15 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Ironically, those questions are more legal than Flock's current usage. The vast majority of Flock's revenue comes from government, and government cannot hire a 3rd party to do what would be unconstitutional if done directly. Thus far, pervasive monitoring without a warrant has been considered an unreasonable search.

[Edit: I think Flocks "victims" have a decent argument for injunctions for the removal of the cameras on the basis that Flock is conducting an illegal search on behalf of the government.]

However, the government can generally do what the public is allowed to do. So, if there are companies serving a genuine market for monitoring your employees, etc. via video surveillance installed on private property... then the government would not be restricted from accessing what private businesses have access to buy.

	▲	btown 9 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It’s an important reminder: I think a lot of people think that online privacy is just a thing that keeps you from being micro-targeted by ads and algorithms - and many don’t care about that. But it’s also a thing that keeps that data from governments that are increasingly confident that they can control the narrative, if and when they use this information in violent ways against their own residents. Because once it’s collected, it can and will be laundered for government use.
	▲	ranger_danger 5 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> government cannot hire a 3rd party to do what would be unconstitutional if done directly Is there actually a legal precedent for this?

▲ thaumaturgy 4 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Those are small potatoes. The obvious big customer is the federal government. Founders Fund was an early investor, Flock's enormous volume of data would be a great fit for Palantir, and as early as 2020, Flock was facilitating direct access for fusion centers:

> “FLOCK already has their license plate reader systems in several neighborhoods in North SA [San Antonio] now,” James Glass, the deputy director of the Southwest Texas Fusion Center, wrote in an October 2020 email to colleagues. “In order to be granted free access to search the FLOCK system for license plate reader hits, we are asked to agree to sign this MOU.”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/talon-flock-safety-cameras-p...

▲ fusslo 13 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

> Flock can make all the promises it wants

They lost me when the CEO lied to a city official in a public meeting. ( https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/tracking-alpr-c... )