One Piece of Flock Camera Data Put This Innocent Woman in Jail for 13 Days

nrmitchi

> Police didn't care that Lindsey Isaacs' car was the wrong color, and wasn't damaged. They still arrested her because of Flock data. This is literally the first sentence of the article. You can dislike public surveillance, but statements like "Flock camera data put this woman in jail for 13 days" blatantly ignores the the fact that Flock didn't put anyone in jail, a bunch of cops who very clearly knew that it wasn't her. > The Flock camera, meanwhile, had recorded Isaacs’ car and its license plate several miles away from the site of the accident, sometime around the time of the incident. Blaming a tool, when the cops in question are clearly willing to grasp to whatever piece of "evidence" makes their job "easier" is a giant cop-out and excuse for the people who are abusing it. Any piece of evidence requires some form of critical examination; that is what law enforcement's job is. If you're just going to go with the first theory/piece-of-evidence they find.... they're not doing their job (and violating peoples constitutional rights through sheer laziness).

delichon

> Regardless, the true takeaway of Isaacs’ experience is that ALPR technology, whether it’s from Flock or any of the other competitors in this space providing the same functionality (Axon, etc), is dangerous not only because it is so easily abused by police (or even by hackers) to invade the privacy and liberty of citizens, but also because it enables a lazy police department to outsource basic critical thinking to machines and then take action based on a single data point to ruin a person’s life. The accusation that some machine made any decision here goes beyond the reporting in the article. It seems concocted to raise AI alarm. All we have is that it supplied accurate data that police then abused. That isn't in the vicinity of "outsource[d] basic critical thinking to machines". I want such general government surveillance banned, but the machines in this story had no more volition than a breathalyzer.

fliglr

I had no idea that cameras were walking the streets and arresting people in America. Only the police should be able to do that. They are clearly far more competent. Oh wait-I just read the article...

smalltorch

Video about the same thing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkUJbJCFjN8

jawns

Is anyone familiar enough with the legal aspects of this case to have an informed opinion about how much she is likely to get in a settlement?

Cider9986

There was a senate hearing a few days ago where this woman testified. Also Benn Jordan and Chad Marlow from the EFF were htere. I was happy hearing them put into words the problems on the national stage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klE498xFjOY

nomilk

Had the 'evidence' been a random dashcam rather than Flock cam, this wouldn't even be a story beyond severe police incompetence. Flock didn't fail to inspect the car for damage and not find any, flock didn't take 13 days to conduct a cursory review of evidence, flock didn't fail to request cell tower triangulation data and rule out her being in the location of the accident... I get that people feel their privacy's invaded by being filmed, but this story doesn't appear to have any more to do with Flock than what the officers had for breakfast or the brand of air freshener she had in her car at the time.

freddealmeida

Flock did not put the woman in jail. The police and DA put her in Jail. This is not a failure of the technology (do they have confidence levels?). This is a failure of how police are outsourcing their reasoning and decision making to an AI camera service that seems to fail at the tail.

teravor

the problem here appears to be that police officers are generally of average or below average intelligence. combined with the fact that they face no consequences for incompetence, you have the perfect mixture for nonsense like this happening. I expect the solution they will settle on is to form a department for interacting with technology like this, who understand its outputs are not edicts. you can't really expect any meaningful police reforms (such as liability and insurance) because anyone who is in any position to enact them is perfectly fine with dumb muscle that holds a monopoly on violence and is deferential to them. in fact the public disliking the police is an ideal outcome for those decision makers as it gives them more leverage over the police.