> One key feature of Flock is its national lookup tool.
> Axon, simply, does not have a national network. Meaning that it would not be possible for cops in one jurisdiction to search cameras across the country.
> Police departments using Axon can enter into data sharing agreements with each other, though.
> Denver, just like the City of Ferndale, explicitly mentioned this lack of this national network as part of its decision to ditch Flock for Axon.
This (probably alongside all the bad press Flock has gotten) appears to be the crux of the switching. Ultimately, the tech actually being deployed seems similar.
Also interesting:
> One reason why journalists, activists, and residents have been able to learn so much about what police use Flock for is that the company has built auditing tools that the public can access through records requests.
For those interested in FOIA lawsuits, there are many, many attorneys out there who'd love to take on a pro bono FOIA case. Lots of it is quite boiler plate and pushing back on arguments that the courts decided on years prior.
How long before Axon turns data sharing "opt out"?
> One reason why journalists, activists, and residents have been able to learn so much about what police use Flock for is that the company has built auditing tools that the public can access through records requests.
As someone else says, "in theory". Also of note, their "Transparency Portal" is... not. I know of at least three agencies in my County who are using Flock who are not listed on the Transparency Portal...
This is a step in the right direction. Everyone hates public surveillance until they become the victim of a crime, but it's critical that the surveillance is owned and controlled fully on an appropriate level.
You should fully own and control your home security cameras. Right now many homeowners are shipping their data to national datacenters.
Municipalities should fully own and control their public security cameras, on municipal datacenter resources.
Data sharing / federation should always be intentional and time-bound. It should be impossible for a small town cop to unilaterally access security records from a random city he has no jurisdiction in.
I don’t know if people hate public surveillance. Most people handle it fine when it’s traffic cameras, security cameras in malls and stores, etc.
The issue is a massive unaccountable dragnet that is prone to abuse and mistakes being treated as infallible by less than competent police.
People really don’t care if the local PD puts up cameras at an intersection with high accident rates, or a street with high crime rates. The issue is automated proactive alerts on incorrect license plates, tracking, nationwide data sharing, lack of judicial oversight, data in private databases, etc.
If they can get the data to their server to store it, they could just as easily not do that and instead serve it from your local device by proxy through their server.
It’s t he exact same difficulty as what they are already doing. Arguably easier since you don’t have to manage file storage in the cloud.
Vendor doesn't matter. The same issues will exist. Public safety is all about aggregating data to "operationalize" it now, so all vendors will be collecting data and sharing it with all customers just like Flock. The only benefit is that for the moment, other vendors' networks are small compared to Flock.
Flock cameras are everywhere all over my very blue area in a blue state with new ones appearing every day. I really don't think this is a Republican/Democrat issue.
And I think as people are learning about it, they are outraged across the political spectrum; perhaps we should capitalized on that instead of trying to turn it into a red/blue thing.
Oh I'm aware of the unmitigated disaster that is the fight between corporate 1 and corporate 2. One sees people as customers and the other sees them as cattle.
> One reason why journalists, activists, and residents have been able to learn so much about what police use Flock for is that the company has built auditing tools that the public can access through records requests. ... It is not clear if the same granularity of data can be learned about Axon systems, although it does allow agencies to generate audit reports.
> Axon’s documentation for its ALPR product, a “shared data” option “extends the query to partner-agency detections once a sharing relationship is active.”
Axon develops a data marketplace to streamline so-called lawful sharing of data, or acquires it via Flock and rebrands the network name. Audit capabilities are removed to streamline operational efficiency and reduce political risk. The public is no better off than before.
> Axon, for example, advertises AI-powered cameras that attach to an existing streetlamp and are designed to completely blend in with their surroundings, and also collects license plate data with cameras installed inside police officers’ patrol vehicles
If anything this will make it go from bad to worse along all axes -- decentralized sharing, making it harder to track data request/usage, hide surveillance in an infrastructure that is considered essential, and host of other things..
Axon is also known as Taser, the company that popularised these sometimes-lethal weapons but promises they are completely safe and never lethal, and now supplies most of America's electronic police equipment.
Axon is a public company with market cap of $50B. It is an incumbent with a huge business in bodycams and tasers with a huge number of US police departments. Flock has a $7.5B valuation at it's last funding round, and is the new comer.
More likely for Axon to acquire flock than the other way around.
They're a public company with a $50B market cap. That's not going to happen.
The direction would be the other way around. Axon is showing that they want the market, that they can build the tech themselves, and that they can leverage their extensive existing relationships with law enforcement and municipal governments as sales channels.
My city has a contract with Flock, but the rest of their tech “stack” is Axon based. I’ll be surprised if they don’t change ALPR to Axon at first chance.
In fact they are probably already using Axon ALPR in their police vehicles. That technology has existed for a while, even before Flock's fixed cameras became widespread.
I find it slightly less objectionable, as the chances that I drive by Flock's cameras every day are nearly 100% but the chances that I'm within visual range of a police car are much lower and more random.
Correct directional analysis - but Axon already has competing products and is demonstrating here that they don’t need to acquire Flock to take market share. I am very doubtful of an acquisition.
Axon just replaces Flock in some places. But I forgot to say that it probably doesn't matter much, and that whatever anyone resents about the whole thing, will just get worse.
That's fine too. I didn't intend to create a point of dispute. That's just my writing style which lends itself to selective interpretation. Understood.
The masses, or 'other' population, whoever it is that protests this variety of surveillance; the angry minority/ineffectual-majority, the misguided few/many that don't embrace the panopticon, etc. Regardless, it's not going away. From here onward, whatever form of surveillance or control it is, it's not going away. Eternal whackamole, eternal malcontent, we can hate it and spray-paint it all we want, but the only means to stop it is the one most people are either not capable of, or do not believe they are capable of, and it does not involve vandalism, feeble expressions of frothing contempt or anything but serious organized and unfortunately, legal methodology. Everything else is mostly symbolic, in a time when public opinion is less valuable than ever, and symbols offer little more than forensic evidence and fuel for long-term counter strategy.
Flock, Axon, ARGUS-IS, Xfinity CSI multi-AP WiFi sensing fusion, evil smartphones -- it's all here to stay, and evolve, and get pushed in our lives.
Might is Right. However terribly wrong it might be. And might is especially right when society divests from the primary tool capable of making it wrong. And I think, largely, that is what we've done. A city council is a minority. Whether it represents the majority, is, I think, not always consistent.
Also Flock, in the past week:
All of Winona Police Department's Flock cameras cut down and stolen
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49171656
257 comments
Cops Used Flock to Track a Man Across State Lines for a Pretextual Weed Search
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49184190
202 comments
How Cops Are Trying to Hide Their Use of Flock
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49172076
10 comments
Flock's CEO Faced Me After Its Cameras Led to My Wrongful Stop
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49156650
118 comments
Flock – Chilling Effects: Long Island's Emerging Open-Air Prison
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49148541
40 comments
Leaked Flock Guide Shows How It Teaches Cops to Promote Its Tech
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49158837
17 comments
> One key feature of Flock is its national lookup tool.
> Axon, simply, does not have a national network. Meaning that it would not be possible for cops in one jurisdiction to search cameras across the country. > Police departments using Axon can enter into data sharing agreements with each other, though.
> Denver, just like the City of Ferndale, explicitly mentioned this lack of this national network as part of its decision to ditch Flock for Axon.
This (probably alongside all the bad press Flock has gotten) appears to be the crux of the switching. Ultimately, the tech actually being deployed seems similar.
Also interesting:
> One reason why journalists, activists, and residents have been able to learn so much about what police use Flock for is that the company has built auditing tools that the public can access through records requests.
it took Last Week Tonight years to get these records in one particular case
Probably this from 3d ago: https://youtube.com/watch?v=lnBPhelCdWE
Generally, silly jokes but a very serious research and fact checking team.
Also one heck of a legal team.
For those interested in FOIA lawsuits, there are many, many attorneys out there who'd love to take on a pro bono FOIA case. Lots of it is quite boiler plate and pushing back on arguments that the courts decided on years prior.
How long before Axon turns data sharing "opt out"?
> One reason why journalists, activists, and residents have been able to learn so much about what police use Flock for is that the company has built auditing tools that the public can access through records requests.
As someone else says, "in theory". Also of note, their "Transparency Portal" is... not. I know of at least three agencies in my County who are using Flock who are not listed on the Transparency Portal...
This is a step in the right direction. Everyone hates public surveillance until they become the victim of a crime, but it's critical that the surveillance is owned and controlled fully on an appropriate level.
You should fully own and control your home security cameras. Right now many homeowners are shipping their data to national datacenters.
Municipalities should fully own and control their public security cameras, on municipal datacenter resources.
Data sharing / federation should always be intentional and time-bound. It should be impossible for a small town cop to unilaterally access security records from a random city he has no jurisdiction in.
I don’t know if people hate public surveillance. Most people handle it fine when it’s traffic cameras, security cameras in malls and stores, etc.
The issue is a massive unaccountable dragnet that is prone to abuse and mistakes being treated as infallible by less than competent police.
People really don’t care if the local PD puts up cameras at an intersection with high accident rates, or a street with high crime rates. The issue is automated proactive alerts on incorrect license plates, tracking, nationwide data sharing, lack of judicial oversight, data in private databases, etc.
> You should fully own and control your home security cameras. Right now many homeowners are shipping their data to national datacenters.
In practice it's difficult to do and offer remote access.
Not at all.
If they can get the data to their server to store it, they could just as easily not do that and instead serve it from your local device by proxy through their server.
It’s t he exact same difficulty as what they are already doing. Arguably easier since you don’t have to manage file storage in the cloud.
It’s not a technical limitation. Nobody sees the need to build it that way though.
[dead]
What is the point of ALPRs if not for the database capability? To prove small town Sally the real estate agent is cheating with Bill the bank manager?
It forces a paper trail of warrants and other "official" pathways that we would normally consider proper policing.
If another district wants to ask a question, they have to follow the appropriate chain of command and use the correct tools.
Flock appears to have been a way for them to work around all of that and just answer any question they had willy-nilly.
Vendor doesn't matter. The same issues will exist. Public safety is all about aggregating data to "operationalize" it now, so all vendors will be collecting data and sharing it with all customers just like Flock. The only benefit is that for the moment, other vendors' networks are small compared to Flock.
republicans got their government small enough that business and religion can drown it.
Flock cameras are everywhere all over my very blue area in a blue state with new ones appearing every day. I really don't think this is a Republican/Democrat issue.
And I think as people are learning about it, they are outraged across the political spectrum; perhaps we should capitalized on that instead of trying to turn it into a red/blue thing.
Oh I'm aware of the unmitigated disaster that is the fight between corporate 1 and corporate 2. One sees people as customers and the other sees them as cattle.
[dead]
> One reason why journalists, activists, and residents have been able to learn so much about what police use Flock for is that the company has built auditing tools that the public can access through records requests. ... It is not clear if the same granularity of data can be learned about Axon systems, although it does allow agencies to generate audit reports.
> Axon’s documentation for its ALPR product, a “shared data” option “extends the query to partner-agency detections once a sharing relationship is active.”
Axon develops a data marketplace to streamline so-called lawful sharing of data, or acquires it via Flock and rebrands the network name. Audit capabilities are removed to streamline operational efficiency and reduce political risk. The public is no better off than before.
Worse off, if anything.
> Axon, for example, advertises AI-powered cameras that attach to an existing streetlamp and are designed to completely blend in with their surroundings, and also collects license plate data with cameras installed inside police officers’ patrol vehicles
If anything this will make it go from bad to worse along all axes -- decentralized sharing, making it harder to track data request/usage, hide surveillance in an infrastructure that is considered essential, and host of other things..
Axon is also known as Taser, the company that popularised these sometimes-lethal weapons but promises they are completely safe and never lethal, and now supplies most of America's electronic police equipment.
Out of the frying pan...
Mass surveillance under any brand name is horrible, and would be illegal in any sane universe.
How many of these bandwagoning Flock Karens have Ring doorbells to keep undesirables off their porch?
Good question, but the way you wrote it is not allowed on HN.
Prediction: Flock acquires Axon.
Axon is a public company with market cap of $50B. It is an incumbent with a huge business in bodycams and tasers with a huge number of US police departments. Flock has a $7.5B valuation at it's last funding round, and is the new comer.
More likely for Axon to acquire flock than the other way around.
half cash, half stock
Soon: Flock branded tasers.
Even better: see Wim Wenders’ The End of Violence.
PTZ tasers!
They're a public company with a $50B market cap. That's not going to happen.
The direction would be the other way around. Axon is showing that they want the market, that they can build the tech themselves, and that they can leverage their extensive existing relationships with law enforcement and municipal governments as sales channels.
My city has a contract with Flock, but the rest of their tech “stack” is Axon based. I’ll be surprised if they don’t change ALPR to Axon at first chance.
In fact they are probably already using Axon ALPR in their police vehicles. That technology has existed for a while, even before Flock's fixed cameras became widespread.
I find it slightly less objectionable, as the chances that I drive by Flock's cameras every day are nearly 100% but the chances that I'm within visual range of a police car are much lower and more random.
Correct directional analysis - but Axon already has competing products and is demonstrating here that they don’t need to acquire Flock to take market share. I am very doubtful of an acquisition.
Prediction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49053193
Axon just replaces Flock in some places. But I forgot to say that it probably doesn't matter much, and that whatever anyone resents about the whole thing, will just get worse.
These are literally city councils in many places. They're not our overlords.
That's fine too. I didn't intend to create a point of dispute. That's just my writing style which lends itself to selective interpretation. Understood.
The masses, or 'other' population, whoever it is that protests this variety of surveillance; the angry minority/ineffectual-majority, the misguided few/many that don't embrace the panopticon, etc. Regardless, it's not going away. From here onward, whatever form of surveillance or control it is, it's not going away. Eternal whackamole, eternal malcontent, we can hate it and spray-paint it all we want, but the only means to stop it is the one most people are either not capable of, or do not believe they are capable of, and it does not involve vandalism, feeble expressions of frothing contempt or anything but serious organized and unfortunately, legal methodology. Everything else is mostly symbolic, in a time when public opinion is less valuable than ever, and symbols offer little more than forensic evidence and fuel for long-term counter strategy.
Flock, Axon, ARGUS-IS, Xfinity CSI multi-AP WiFi sensing fusion, evil smartphones -- it's all here to stay, and evolve, and get pushed in our lives.
Might is Right. However terribly wrong it might be. And might is especially right when society divests from the primary tool capable of making it wrong. And I think, largely, that is what we've done. A city council is a minority. Whether it represents the majority, is, I think, not always consistent.
They really want people to get e-ink license plates don't they?
The ones that are illegal to use and stick out like a sore thumb?
[dead]