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Comment by perks_12 | Hacker News Reader

Can someone enlighten me why Flock cameras are worse than the average security camera? How is it such a big topic now when their large network suggests that they've been in operation for quite some time by now?

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Louis Rossmann likes to point out that the "CC" in "CCTV" means "closed circuit." Traditional security cameras are displayed maybe in a security booth in real time somewhere, and then recorded onto an on-prem hard drive. When the drive fills up the oldest video is overwritten. They're only ever looked at after recording if there's a reason to look at them.

The Flock cameras, on the other hand, upload all data to Flock which stores all video forever. They also do image recognition to identify license plates as well as other identifiable information (they've claimed to not do facial recognition but the implication is they can).

They then make this searchable so any cop with a flock login can put, say, your license plate into a flock search and it will give him a complete record of all your movements all across the country.

Network effects. Massive difference between police having to go talk to a local business owner or private citizen and say "hey, there was a robbery here, can you please go pull the footage you got last night at 8pm and see if you can share it with us please?" and being able to do a one-click nationwide query.

My child's daycare has cameras, accessible to management, with some time period of ring buffering, available at the DVR. I know everyone with access.

Playgrounds with flock cameras allow folks I don't know to watch children live.

Why would a flock camera be at a playground, they're automatic license plate readers, I thought, not surveillance cameras with real time video.

I've seen a lot of anti flock arguments but the comment you're responding to is the first I've seen pull out 'for the children'.

Their Condor cameras are not ALPR, they are normal surveillance cameras with pan-tilt-zoom.

Flick doesn’t just do license plate readers. They do all kinds of surveillance cameras.

You'd have to ask the guys putting flock cameras in playgrounds.

Flock apparently know how to sell this stuff to cops because not only did they film children's gymnastics they used the footage as part of their sales pitch to police:

https://www.gadgetreview.com/flock-safety-employees-watched-...

Creeps presumably.

They have not been in operation for quite some time now. The large network is not a product of a long and steady roll out, but instead significant financial investment - much of which coming from people who are on record saying that democracy is a flawed system and other authoritarian soundbytes.

https://maps.deflock.org/timeline

The number of cameras rolled out since 2025 is insane.

Bob is the town mayor. The police want XYZ. The police request from flock a detail breakdown of everywhere that Bob went in the last 5 years (this example is after flock has been around a while) and then feeds that into AI looking for patterns. The police find a mistress. The police now get everything they want for the rest of mayor Bob's term.

Flock is a large panopticon used to control the population. It became apparent recently how Flock cameras would be used by a new administration to purge law abiding workers and residents whose only crime was their immigration status. Whether you agree or not with the policy of this purge, you still witnessed the frightening efficiency with which authorities could now track and enforce whatever policy would come down the pipe. It made clear through show of force the new threat to a free people.

If it were a single camera or location, there is much less ability to track and attempt to coerce a large population.

the best place to start, if you're legitimately curious, would probably be the many news paper articles and the many recorded city meetings where flock's controversies are brought up.

even https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flock_Safety#Controversies is a good start

https://cambridgeanalytica.org/surveillance-privacy/police-f...

(ironic URL)

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