Are Flock Cameras Public Safety or Public Surveillance? | Shop Talk #88

Yeah, let's get on to the question here from Tax Dentist.

He says, very balanced presentation, thanks.

He says, I guess the thing I don't understand about the opposition to these cameras is that we all carry cell phones that track our movements every day, and if you believe the detective shows on TV, the police can reconstruct your path at any time using cell tower pings, GPS, or both.

He says, we don't seem to be too worried about that, so why are we more concerned about technology that seems less precise than the technology that tracks our cell phones?

Well, I think the big difference, the difference with flock cameras or with any camera system like this is that out of a series of instantaneous, here's a picture of your car here and a picture of your car here and a picture of your car an hour later over here, they can construct a path for you in time.

which basically amounts to surveillance of you, which they can't do with individual images, but because they're doing so many individual images, they have enough to construct it over time.

And so it's kind of like warrantless surveillance in a way.

And now you're right in that if they get a warrant and they track you by your phone, well, that's way more accurate.

That's down to the meter if you're outside, I'm sure, or less than that.

But the problem is that they can get all this data without a warrant.

So if this was warrant data or you could only do searches with a warrant or certain searches at least required a warrant or anything interesting about a named individual required a warrant.

If it wasn't an exigent situation, it would require a warrant.

Or, you know, if it was a FISA court or some kind of weird like that set up, like to arbitrate whether they got to look at it or not, that would make a big difference.

Yeah.

And I think some of those things are going to come up through some other questions.

Trumpet Punk says, he says so much to unpack here, but what the heck is convoy analysis? And what do they mean by real time routing tools? Says these could be potentially AI predictive policing things that are way more insidious than anything else discussed in the video.

Yeah, I assume when I saw the convoy or convoy controls or analysis, it's something they list in their feature set.

So I'm not 100% sure, but I assume it's when you have multiple vehicles in a fleet and they're all traveling together as one.

Are they still traveling together as a pack of eight? Are they all together? Has one deviated 20 miles from the rest? That kind of thing that you can do.

Yeah.

So that's a feature that you would add on to it.

I don't know how that's useful for surveillance other than, hey, maybe get these five people that are like in a gang and we're going to track them if they ever get together or something like that, maybe.

Yeah.

Let's start a gang, Glenn.

You can get in on the ground floor.

Yeah, let's get on to the question here from Tax Dentist.

He says, very balanced presentation, thanks.

He says, I guess the thing I don't understand about the opposition to these cameras is that we all carry cell phones that track our movements every day, and if you believe the detective shows on TV, the police can reconstruct your path at any time using cell tower pings, GPS, or both.

He says, we don't seem to be too worried about that, so why are we more concerned about technology that seems less precise than the technology that tracks our cell phones?

Well, I think the big difference, the difference with flock cameras or with any camera system like this is that out of a series of instantaneous, here's a picture of your car here and a picture of your car here and a picture of your car an hour later over here, they can construct a path for you in time.

which basically amounts to surveillance of you, which they can't do with individual images, but because they're doing so many individual images, they have enough to construct it over time.

And so it's kind of like warrantless surveillance in a way.

And now you're right in that if they get a warrant and they track you by your phone, well, that's way more accurate.

That's down to the meter if you're outside, I'm sure, or less than that.

But the problem is that they can get all this data without a warrant.

So if this was warrant data or you could only do searches with a warrant or certain searches at least required a warrant or anything interesting about a named individual required a warrant.

If it wasn't an exigent situation, it would require a warrant.

Or, you know, if it was a FISA court or some kind of weird like that set up, like to arbitrate whether they got to look at it or not, that would make a big difference.

Yeah.

And I think some of those things are going to come up through some other questions.

Trumpet Punk says, he says so much to unpack here, but what the heck is convoy analysis? And what do they mean by real time routing tools? Says these could be potentially AI predictive policing things that are way more insidious than anything else discussed in the video.

Yeah, I assume when I saw the convoy or convoy controls or analysis, it's something they list in their feature set.

So I'm not 100% sure, but I assume it's when you have multiple vehicles in a fleet and they're all traveling together as one.

Are they still traveling together as a pack of eight? Are they all together? Has one deviated 20 miles from the rest? That kind of thing that you can do.

Yeah.

So that's a feature that you would add on to it.

I don't know how that's useful for surveillance other than, hey, maybe get these five people that are like in a gang and we're going to track them if they ever get together or something like that, maybe.

Yeah.

Let's start a gang, Glenn.

You can get in on the ground floor.