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Flock Leaked Cops’ License Plate Searches via DuckDuckGo, Bing (www.404media.co)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Flock, the automatic license plate reader (ALPR) company, exposed some of the license plate cops were looking for and the reason for doing so.

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[–] 195 points 3 months ago (36 children)

Remember it's not just a license plate reader. There should be a law against calling it that.

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  • [–] 29 points 3 months ago (35 children)

    Could you explain what you mean further?

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  • [–] 122 points 3 months ago (7 children)

    They're little computers with cameras that capture everything. I think some of these types of devices run Android. Many are very poorly secured, like the article suggests. A "license plate reader" sounds like it only reads license plates, these are surveillance platforms, with cameras and microphones. They can be accessed remotely to do more than just read a license plate.

    I'm thinking the person says that couching it as a license plate reader is disingenuous, because it doesn't really convey the gravity of what the devices are capable of.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    Any "license plate reader" has a camera and can be used for anything. This was true before flock.

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  • [–] 15 points 3 months ago

    I didn't know "any license plate reader" also scanned your phone as you went by and added your dog to their database to better identify you as an individual.

    They don’t just read license plates. They analyze faces/pets/distinctive clothing to ID people, scan nearby WiFi and Bluetooth signals to track devices, scan distinctive features of vehicles (dents, scratches, bumper stickers, etc) to track them even without a clear license plate, etc… Calling it a license plate reader vastly downplays their capabilities.

    It’s like someone calling a fully automatic high-powered machine gun “a rabbit-hunting gun”. Sure it could be used to shoot rabbits, but that’s vastly understating the capabilities.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    'Can be' and 'are' are two completely different categories of things.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

    You think USA government agencies never thought of using public surveillance cameras to spy on people before now? That's like basic stuff for any domestic security agency, in any country. The only difference is that now the data is shared with regular police with all the incompetence and abuse it implies. You have always been spied on.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago*

    You think USA government agencies never thought of using public surveillance cameras to spy on people before now?

    No. I do not.

    I think allowing a private company access to that kind of data, without any meaningful restrictions on what they can do with it, is a lot different than the current situation of 'spy agencies can spy for the government'.

    If I'm a bad guy and I can get access to a Flock (or Palantir, fed by Flock) subscription then I can do bad guy things a lot more effectively. Can you think of any bad guys who could afford such a subscription?

    Who owns that data and what rules it falls under is important. The government needs a warrant to obtain cell-site location tracking data, but Flock can sell a subscription to obtain that same data to anybody who can clear an ACH transfer.

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  • [–] 97 points 3 months ago* (11 children)

    They don’t just read license plates. They analyze faces/pets/distinctive clothing to ID people, scan nearby WiFi and Bluetooth signals to track devices, scan distinctive features of vehicles (dents, scratches, bumper stickers, etc) to track them even without a clear license plate, etc… Calling it a license plate reader vastly downplays their capabilities.

    It’s like someone calling a fully automatic high-powered machine gun “a rabbit-hunting gun”. Sure it could be used to shoot rabbits, but that’s vastly understating the capabilities.

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  • [–] 32 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    It's good to point this out, I don't drive but I forget they could probably track my bike still based on it's distinctiveness, calling them license plate readers really does obscure the insidiousness well. We've heard about automatic license plate readers for years, they weren't like this so it is really disingenuous to call them such.

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  • [–] 9 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    oh yeah. like, if the police in town have figured out who i am from my trike, there's no way the ALPR hasn't. that thing is fucking distinctive. and i wave hi to everyone (the ALPRs with one finger)

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  • [–] 24 points 3 months ago (6 children)

    Atlanta has them in the middle of parks too far from and facing away from parking lots to read any license plates.... they're there to use facial recognition on children playing on park equipment.

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  • [–] 14 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    Oh wow.this is just blatantly anti-police. You think cops shouldn't get to masturbate, just because they're cops?

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    Not in their cruiser in the Walmart parking lot.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    Then where. You can't really be asking them to get out of their cars!

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago

    ground squirrels. we use the atf tag (it's not mine, i don't know what it's called) machine gun to hunt ground squirrels. i mean you have to kill them for environmental regulation and agricultural control anyways, might as well have some fun.

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  • [–] 56 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    It uses machine learning algorithms to identify vehicles independently of the license plate. Leaked documentation has also shown they operate facial recognition tech, in direct contradiction to the lies they tell the public. Flock is fundamentally an evil company, delivering the infrastructure for totalitarian rule, wrapped in the alluring false promise of eliminating crime. They know exactly what they are doing, which is why they are so heartily embraced by fascists in government, from the top all the way down.

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  • [–] 12 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    So the people that like these don't mind their own privacy being invaded? Perhaps they already know if caught doing something they will get a free pass?

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  • [–] 17 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Generally the ones putting them in are on the side of the system that gets a free pass wherever they go. And the majority of the public that allows it to happen fall for the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" fallacy.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago

    i mean, i can bow and scrape my way into free passes for the occasional thing (it's usually in exchange for extraordinary services rendered years ago let's be real), but don't think for a second i want those flock fuckers in my country.

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  • [–] 12 points 3 months ago (5 children)

    On top of what everyone else saod, FLOCK can track your vehicle as you cross several plus states. I would say 90% if not more highways and freeways have them across the US.

    Cool tool for stopping real crininals, bad tool on a civil rights side.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago

    Pretty much everyone is a real criminal, it's just that most crimes are so minor that they are ignored (see: jaywalking, speeding, putting ice cream in your pocket). In some cases, the laws exist to provide a fig leaf for the powers that be when they want to fuck with someone.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    People don't understand "real" criminal in deeply intertwined with regular people and regular cops and politicians. Most "regular" naive people think of criminals as some mythical thing but they are everywhere. It's almost as if the "straight" legal life is mirrored 1 to 1 with the dark side. And that part of maintaining the "legal" side is to market that the dark side is a myth, even though is there, part of the "legal" sides politics, economy, and culture.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

    This is basically what happened when people whine about the authority only take action when crime are commited. So now everyone are being watched in every corner.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago*

    Idk even know if it's that. This system works people against each other. They create the barrel of crabs and profit off all the bullshit as people claw their way out to get to the rights that a human should naturally have.

    Everything is business. And suffering creates reason. It's a system.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    They're just public cameras. They're notoriously used to capture and record the locations of vehicles via their license plates but realistically they totally could flip a switch and start using them for things like facial recognition overnight.

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