The outrage level and desire to stop tech being used this way ought to be reaching a fever pitch rather than being a kind of unfortunate documentary of how it isn't working right.
Tostino
I just spoke at my county commission meeting this morning, against these cameras, as they're debating putting 50% more cameras up across the county. The original set went up without any news coverage or fanfare. https://www.youtube.com/live/1OmEmpL-7qY?t=720&is=z_mb9ZEVCs... Looks like I have two serious opponents to privacy on the commission to deal with, and the commissioner seems to at least want to end the contract. I have no idea where the other two members sit.
joshstrange
> Technology is supposed to make police work faster and safer. Not sure I agree with the premise... > Most of the time it does. Citation needed > But every so often, a computer system hiccups, and an ordinary person ends up staring down the barrel of a gun for no reason at all. "Aww shucks, you know, bugs happen and sometimes guns get pointed at people because of them". Pardon my language but: What the actual fuck? How does a site write that with a straight face? Just absolutely trash reporting and the site doesn't allow for copy/paste to top it off. EDIT: And after reading further I can confirm this publication and author are not good at their jobs. The ending paragraph is absolutely absurd. This isn't reporting, this is just saying what the police and the victim said while throwing in line at the end saying maybe we need more oversight. This is bottom-of-the-barrel reporting and it make my blood boil for them to just shrug this off and make excuses for how the police acted here.
nemomarx
Why did they need to have guns drawn and that many cops, even if the flag had been correct? A car involved in a homicide investigation doesn't mean it's even being driven by the suspect. It's not a positive ID at all
VariousPrograms
The inaccuracy of our omniscient AI surveillance network isn't why I'm against it. The conclusion of this article is that we need more humans in the loop for a successful police state.
dghlsakjg
Like many things in American policing, this could easily be fixed by ensuring real consequences and penalties for fuckups like this. Incentives guide actions, and there is no incentive not to keep repeating the same negligent mistake. What officer in Milwaukee left a dead notice in the system even after there was one false positive, and what happened to him (I would be willing to bet actual money that the answer is nothing). Who set up the system in Brookfield that allows them to accidentally pull a gun on someone innocent for the exact same reason they pulled a gun on that exact same person a few days earlier. There is no other profession where you can get away with repeated identical negligence like this. The reason for that is in almost every other profession, negligence is a liability for the parties involved. In policing it is a liability, but not for the negligent person or department.
Animats
That's not a Flock error. That's a law enforcement error. Flock isn't responsible for a bogus warrant in the system. The woman probably has a good case for damages from the police department for doing it twice. That's sloppy police work.
jMyles
The institution of police has run its course and is time to deprecate. Flock cameras... I mean, look: our society, without any central organization at all, has the capacity to record nearly every crime that occurs, just by dint of our camera phones and private surveillance systems. So Flock really just gives the police more information, creating a an asymmetry with the rest of society. Given that we can already record all that we need to, and call for help from each other at a moment's notice, what good can police do for the next few centuries? And what possible hope is there that it will outweigh the bad?
Razengan
The real irony is how Americans still claim to be much better off than outright authoritarian states like China.
arun6582
Police were like this before glitches
skullone
Add the flock CEOs license plate to the system, lets see how he likes it
ratelimitsteve
One of my favorite parts of people wanting to hand power to AI is the way that it very obviously doesn't fucking work.
throw7
"an employee simply forgot to remove it." And? That's all? This is why no one wants the gov't. to run things.
xyzsparetimexyz
Literally worse than the mass surveillance system in China lmao
tamimio
> Flock camera, an automated system that scans license plates > Flock cameras work by reading plates and comparing them against active alerts False, flock cameras are car identification and fingerprinting devices, they would ID your car even if you don’t have a license plate at all. > A tool built to keep communities safer This should be put as a quote taken from the corporate BS, because obviously it didn’t make any community safer > As for the rest of us, it is a good reminder that these cameras are everywhere now Trying to normalize a police state, is this journalism now or straight up paid shills?!
0n0n0m0uz
I am sure the government will not abuse this powerful technology
andybak
I get tired of saying this but "got misidentified by the police" is somewhere between an annoyance and a humourous anecdote in most developed countries that aren't the USA where it appears to be justifiably regarded as a near death experience.
0n0n0m0uz
I am sure the government will not abuse this powerful technology. I actually believe SCOTUS will eventually try to reign in although not eliminate the scope of what this tech can do under the constitution
MrToadMan
Also worth watching John Oliver’s segment on this topic on Last Week Tonight ( https://youtube.com/shorts/BAEjOAe948k?si=Lfkw6prZxHk2R-I2 ) Includes an example of a Flock camera flagging a number plate that the police pulled over, a family car SUV believing it to be stolen, but the stolen vehicle was actually a motorcycle with the same plate number but a different state!
tezo_cooper
This happened while I was up in Maine - friend had purchased a used vehicle with all the paperwork earlier in the day. Both parties happy, somehow flock wrongly flagged the vehicle as "stolen" and dispatched police without any probable cause or ask from the buyer or seller. This is completely NOT ok.
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Discussion Highlights (20 comments)
thataccount
The outrage level and desire to stop tech being used this way ought to be reaching a fever pitch rather than being a kind of unfortunate documentary of how it isn't working right.
Tostino
I just spoke at my county commission meeting this morning, against these cameras, as they're debating putting 50% more cameras up across the county. The original set went up without any news coverage or fanfare. https://www.youtube.com/live/1OmEmpL-7qY?t=720&is=z_mb9ZEVCs... Looks like I have two serious opponents to privacy on the commission to deal with, and the commissioner seems to at least want to end the contract. I have no idea where the other two members sit.
joshstrange
> Technology is supposed to make police work faster and safer. Not sure I agree with the premise... > Most of the time it does. Citation needed > But every so often, a computer system hiccups, and an ordinary person ends up staring down the barrel of a gun for no reason at all. "Aww shucks, you know, bugs happen and sometimes guns get pointed at people because of them". Pardon my language but: What the actual fuck? How does a site write that with a straight face? Just absolutely trash reporting and the site doesn't allow for copy/paste to top it off. EDIT: And after reading further I can confirm this publication and author are not good at their jobs. The ending paragraph is absolutely absurd. This isn't reporting, this is just saying what the police and the victim said while throwing in line at the end saying maybe we need more oversight. This is bottom-of-the-barrel reporting and it make my blood boil for them to just shrug this off and make excuses for how the police acted here.
nemomarx
Why did they need to have guns drawn and that many cops, even if the flag had been correct? A car involved in a homicide investigation doesn't mean it's even being driven by the suspect. It's not a positive ID at all
VariousPrograms
The inaccuracy of our omniscient AI surveillance network isn't why I'm against it. The conclusion of this article is that we need more humans in the loop for a successful police state.
dghlsakjg
Like many things in American policing, this could easily be fixed by ensuring real consequences and penalties for fuckups like this. Incentives guide actions, and there is no incentive not to keep repeating the same negligent mistake. What officer in Milwaukee left a dead notice in the system even after there was one false positive, and what happened to him (I would be willing to bet actual money that the answer is nothing). Who set up the system in Brookfield that allows them to accidentally pull a gun on someone innocent for the exact same reason they pulled a gun on that exact same person a few days earlier. There is no other profession where you can get away with repeated identical negligence like this. The reason for that is in almost every other profession, negligence is a liability for the parties involved. In policing it is a liability, but not for the negligent person or department.
Animats
That's not a Flock error. That's a law enforcement error. Flock isn't responsible for a bogus warrant in the system. The woman probably has a good case for damages from the police department for doing it twice. That's sloppy police work.
jMyles
The institution of police has run its course and is time to deprecate. Flock cameras... I mean, look: our society, without any central organization at all, has the capacity to record nearly every crime that occurs, just by dint of our camera phones and private surveillance systems. So Flock really just gives the police more information, creating a an asymmetry with the rest of society. Given that we can already record all that we need to, and call for help from each other at a moment's notice, what good can police do for the next few centuries? And what possible hope is there that it will outweigh the bad?
Razengan
The real irony is how Americans still claim to be much better off than outright authoritarian states like China.
arun6582
Police were like this before glitches
skullone
Add the flock CEOs license plate to the system, lets see how he likes it
ratelimitsteve
One of my favorite parts of people wanting to hand power to AI is the way that it very obviously doesn't fucking work.
throw7
"an employee simply forgot to remove it." And? That's all? This is why no one wants the gov't. to run things.
xyzsparetimexyz
Literally worse than the mass surveillance system in China lmao
tamimio
> Flock camera, an automated system that scans license plates > Flock cameras work by reading plates and comparing them against active alerts False, flock cameras are car identification and fingerprinting devices, they would ID your car even if you don’t have a license plate at all. > A tool built to keep communities safer This should be put as a quote taken from the corporate BS, because obviously it didn’t make any community safer > As for the rest of us, it is a good reminder that these cameras are everywhere now Trying to normalize a police state, is this journalism now or straight up paid shills?!
0n0n0m0uz
I am sure the government will not abuse this powerful technology
andybak
I get tired of saying this but "got misidentified by the police" is somewhere between an annoyance and a humourous anecdote in most developed countries that aren't the USA where it appears to be justifiably regarded as a near death experience.
0n0n0m0uz
I am sure the government will not abuse this powerful technology. I actually believe SCOTUS will eventually try to reign in although not eliminate the scope of what this tech can do under the constitution
MrToadMan
Also worth watching John Oliver’s segment on this topic on Last Week Tonight ( https://youtube.com/shorts/BAEjOAe948k?si=Lfkw6prZxHk2R-I2 ) Includes an example of a Flock camera flagging a number plate that the police pulled over, a family car SUV believing it to be stolen, but the stolen vehicle was actually a motorcycle with the same plate number but a different state!
tezo_cooper
This happened while I was up in Maine - friend had purchased a used vehicle with all the paperwork earlier in the day. Both parties happy, somehow flock wrongly flagged the vehicle as "stolen" and dispatched police without any probable cause or ask from the buyer or seller. This is completely NOT ok.