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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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[–] 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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