Comment by thaumaturgy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thaumaturgy | Hacker News Reader

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Except that Flock very clearly benefits financially from having direct access to this data: owning (and in their own documentation, they very clearly do own it) a network of 80,000 surveillance devices across the country, and owning every single transit point for the data they collect, is what gets them to a $7.5 billion valuation from investors.

The fact of the matter is that Flock is playing two-step with the concept of "ownership" of data. They disclaim ownership as a way to leave local agencies holding the bag for liabilities, but they fight tenaciously to retain complete and unfettered access to that data.

(After organizing a community group that won Flock contract cancellations in multiple jurisdictions in Oregon, I went on to coauthor state legislation regulating ALPRs. I am very well familiar with all the dirty ball they play.)

Also, Flock's cameras collect more data than is provided to police agencies. Who owns that data, I wonder?

That makes them a data broker in my reading, and at least in California, Data Broker legislation should apply. CA Data Broker registry gives me access denied, but that could be because I am outside US.

I looked it up at https://cppa.ca.gov/data_broker_registry/ and didn't find Flock / Flock Safety in that list of the currently registered 566 data brokers.

Because Flock isn't a data broker. Flock's customers own their data, not Flock, and they use Flock's platform voluntarily to share data with other customers.

I was referring to the claim that "Flock's cameras collect more data than is provided to police agencies" — that suggests that there is data not "owned" by the customers, which implies it's Flock's data, thus it might make them liable under Data Broker legislation.

Equivocation. My stock broker doesn't own my stocks either, they merely hold my assets in a brokerage account.

I encourage you to present that analogy to an actual court and see how far it gets you. It's very easy to find the statutory definition of a "data broker" under California law.

This is what I mean by the fruitlessness of these kinds of legal discussions on HN. What do you want me to argue, that you're wrong to want the law to work that way?

Are you aware that not every lawyer with skin in the game shares your opinion of what a broker is?

https://www.courthousenews.com/california-drivers-accuse-flo...

And you would (rightfully) be angered if your stock broker sold your shares and pocketed the proceeds, because you own them.

Technically, most stocks are registered in the name of a securities holding company, with you named as beneficial owner. That makes it frictionless for you to buy and sell. You enjoy all the rights of ownership, unless the broker lends your shares out to someone else.

You _can_ get shares registered in your name.

Flock charges to access the data which is voluntarily shared by other customers. I am struggling to note a difference in this practice from any other data brokerage service in existence.

Does Flock do some kind of P2P dance to avoid the data transiting their systems?

Legally how does it work if I upload a file to Google Docs and then share it with my contacts? Is Google then a data brokerage for my files?

They are not, because they are not operating a business that acquires and resells your data. You own your document, and Google isn't selling it to third parties. Flock doesn't own municipal data, and Flock is also not "selling it to third parties"; it's facilitating a sharing system that law enforcement agencies avidly desire.

Presumably the California data brokerage statutes were written specifically to prevent the kind of nerd-lawyering happening on this thread.

So… Flock uses their own platform and top to bottom tech stack to do everything technically? Your local PD doesn’t use random cameras (like Reolink), doesn’t run a custom software stack (like Frigate in a container on some random VM hosted with AWS), doesn’t store the data wherever (like Backblaze)? The customers just have to install the Flock cameras and “order” the subsequent data from Flock? But you say they’re not at all responsible or accountable for any it because despite doing everything at every step, they’re “just a broker”?

If Flock's customers, using Flock's infrastructure or tooling, can share data with each other, that would be bad.

I'm not saying that's what's happening, but that's what I thought was happening before reading this thread, and now I have to go and run through their policies.

Either way ALPRs and AI-facial scanners in public are a huge violation of privacy and I loathe them, but I hope it's correct that Flock customers cannot easily share information with one another.

> If Flock's customers, using Flock's infrastructure or tooling, can share data with each other, that would be bad.

Ex-employee of Flock here, that's ABSOLUTELY what's happening.

And what's more Flock lets them do so even when they know the agencies are legally not permitted to do so. They turn a blind eye, say it's not their problem to enforce ("oh, doing so in state X is illegal? Well, even if your agency is in state X, we didn't disable that feature"), then happily provide training to do enable those agencies to do so (and it's a nudge nudge wink wink part of the sales process.)

Sharing data between customers is a large part of the point of the product.

That's absolutely what is happening.

https://www.courthousenews.com/california-drivers-accuse-flo...

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