Hacker News Reader

Comment by glaslong | Hacker News Reader

A frequent argument made in Flock's favor is that if you are in public there isn't an expectation of privacy. That Flock can see where you go just like any other driver. Particularly since Flock is a private entity not the government. This is the Other Driver behaving antisocially towards one driver EXACTLY as Flock does to all drivers.

View on HN

I agree that that is not a good argument. I am perfectly fine with the government having access to things, for instance taxation or armed enforcers + bodycams, that are illegal for the youtuber.

In general I agree. I like having a State, whose definition is more or less the (hopefully judicious) monopoly on such violence.

But the State seems to be doing an end run on restrictions against unreasonable (warrantless) search which we've agreed it should be constrained on, by giving private entities carte blanche to lowjack the entire population and sell that data to whomever they like (so long as the State gets to cheat by buying from them too).

And so far, the most notable uses of this workaround by government seems to be..... cops stalking women for fun.

All in all l, I'm not particularly happy with the government having this power while it is clearly not being used responsibly.

I generally agree with courts that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in the plate itself or, ordinarily, in being observed at a particular point on a public road. I feel similarly about these things to speed cameras. I appreciate that these cameras reduce police + civilian interactions that often escalate to police shootings. I don't fully understand where this outrage is coming from.

That said, I do support stricter access control standards. However, AFAIU Flock cameras used by the cops do not sell data to 'whomever they like.'

Reply on news.ycombinator.com