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Cities Panic Over Having to Release Mass Surveillance Recordings


This gets us to the central problem of today’s surveillance state. No one running the cameras wants to be observed. One reason that city officials object to releasing Flock data, for example, must that they themselves are among the recorded. The cameras are on them too; they too can be tracked. Everything means everything for these everywhere cameras.
in reply to technocrit

“You mean we have to let the public use the services they’re paying for? Wtf!”
in reply to technocrit

I worry we give too much attention to one company over several that are problematic. Not that the attention is invalid, more that we need to keep every invasive technology in each other's awareness.
in reply to Maeve

It's at least setting legal precedent which makes it easier to fight against these.
in reply to chickenf622

common law "precedent" is just a bastardization of roman law meant to allow for some inbred english aristocrats to maintain their grip on power.

civil law is objectively superior in everyway that matters

in reply to technocrit

My friend and I look for these occasionally. They’re often deployed with default passwords and never updated. Many seem to be set up to case businesses and houses and appear to be obscured from view. It’s super great /s
in reply to sleepmode

Any clever "google Dork" ways in finding these "flock" devices through eg Shodan?
in reply to NarrativeBear

And for anyone reading this, please contribute to the map when you find a camera irl that's not included
in reply to sleepmode

What's the default password? And how do you connect to it?
in reply to technocrit

“This is sensitive data that could do a lot of damage if it fell into the wrong hands”, said the people paying a for-profit company to collect the data
in reply to technocrit

NY city is the most camera surveillance place on earth. Didn't make it much safer.
in reply to Nomorereddit

Is it NYC now? I remember it being London a while back, but considering the money, I wouldn't be surprised if it was NYC now.
in reply to P00ptart

Yeah I remember UK was way ahead of the game on this and it was a big topic in the 2000s but maybe they got overtaken.
in reply to technocrit

That's how it is done.
If it is a public camera, it has to be a public record.
And if not, then anyone having access to the feed, has to have their whole life (both work and personal) be available as a public record.

If not, then you now have cases where most people can't afford to defend themselves from malicious cop allegations.
To prevent this, anyone arrested, pre-trial has to have access to all searches done by cops, related to the allegation and ability to pull-up 100% of their own footage anytime near the event in question.

If any part of the footage is deleted, due to "technical issues" like, "the footage was deleted" or "some of the cameras were not working", then the arrest is illegal and the police department is responsible for compensation.

in reply to ulterno

I'm not from the US, but it would seem to me that public cameras should only be accessible for legitimate purposes.

Police should need to request footage, but similarly, you shouldn't be able to just request any footage willy nilly, because of stalking.

Seems that it should be tightly regulated and require multiple people to gain access, and be documented who was given access.

Overall your comment seems like a great suggestion to me. If footage "goes missing", they had better have way more evidence to back up their charges.

in reply to MisterFrog

This also boils down to who is in control of the data.
Whoever gets to approve the data requests, needs to be answerable to those whose footage is being recorded.

If footage is asked for, then such a request needs to be logged publicly, with the requester's identifiable information and stored as a permanent record, regardless of approval.


If any legislation is to be made regarding this, it is important to keep in mind that incomplete footage can be more harmful and will be misused.

Then comes the point where cops don't really care about correctly solving a case and are happy with propping any random citizen as a criminal. And considering how easily they can get away with harassment even after being exposed, it honestly doesn't make sense to me at all that they be given absolutely any extra privileges.


From my standpoint, if I can't use a local police camera to get informed on who cut the brake-cable of my bicycle, then there might as well be no police camera.

Everytime I have personally seen the police go out of their way to do something, they never had any legitimate purposes.

in reply to MisterFrog

In reality it's supposed to be even more strict. They're trying to get around this by having a private company own the cameras. If the government owned the cameras, they would need to get a warrant with a sufficiently narrow target from a judge before initiating electronic surveillance to track the targets' location.

If something is really going on which justifies it, getting a warrant is trivial and probable cause is a low bar.

in reply to technocrit

Something like 90% of houses in this area have some kind of camera on it. I hate being filmed by these shitheads 24/7.
in reply to Alenalda

Yup. 1 day I just counted all the cameras on my way to get breakfast it was 57. And I'm sure I've missed many.
in reply to Alenalda

I'm one of those. Honestly it's great to have. Not sure about situations where a house is closer to the road, but mine doesn't record people on the sidewalk. You have to walk halfway up my driveway or more before it picks up on something to record. Helps me keep an eye on the stray cats that have a heated home on my porch, though.
in reply to shaggyb

No thank you, it's very useful and not shared. I have the right to video my own property.
in reply to shaggyb

Best option is to recommend people self host their camera feeds. People aren't going to give cameras up, myself included, but keeping it all out of the ring/nest/netvue or any other cloud system is the way to go.

People can record in public, and that includes the area around their houses. Having 100s of thousands or millions of cameras sharing feeds with law enforcement for warrantless surveillance or corporate data hounds for more people tracking is the issue.

in reply to pishadoot

Yes. I would have no issue with all my neighbors having local systems like I'm switching to. But putting a cloud camera out on the sidewalk, where it's not pointing at your entrance, but just filming passersby (my new neighbor)... eek. I am thinking of leaving him a note, just politely asking why he feels the need to record me walking my dog every day. At least put up a privacy notice we can all read and sign before crossing the public easement that people are totally allowed to walk. Let me know how me and my dog's facial structures are going to be used to train mysterious backroom Planitir AIs. Like good neighbors do.
in reply to BanMe

in reply to pishadoot

I don't think they're disputing any of that if it's hosted locally (including safely remote accessed by you). i think they're talking about it being fed to the cloud & commoditised, which is a valid concern imo.
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to pishadoot

ofc neighbour does not want to record them, personally, but obviously they personally are negatively affected, against their will.

don't forget that people aren't leaving the house for the chance to be a public actor.

in reply to shaggyb

And why would I? My cameras record to my sever and nobody sees the cast majority of the footage.
in reply to Alenalda

It's everywhere, I take public transit and there's always some dummy filming his girlfriend or tourists staring in wonder at a train coming out of a tunnel and filming that too. I try to move away as quickly as possible. Now even at the public library entrance there is a camera. Guess I can't go naked anymore!
in reply to HugeNerd

Unless America is way different most of those cameras are standalone systems.
in reply to Alenalda

I was having catalytic converters stolen, and packages stolen, and even bridge toll trackers stolen. Then I added a bunch of lights and cameras. Now it doesn’t happen anymore. What am I supposed to do?
in reply to ayyy

Replace the cameras with dummy cameras, because like you said "It doesn't happen anymore."
in reply to NauticalNoodle

And who cares. My cameras record do you know who sees 99% of it nobody. It just gets recorded over.
in reply to technocrit

in reply to zephiriz

Also this just drops it's rather cool.
youtu.be/uB0gr7Fh6lY
This entry was edited (3 weeks ago)
in reply to zephiriz

I have the same feelings. I’m leaning towards preferring no cameras though. Data is cheap to store and never* gets deleted. Bad actors can comb through that information after the fact and use it for whatever purposes they want, even if it was initially taken/given with good intentions. Walking by a Ring camera now gets a mandatory consent-free facial scanning attempt. These cameras were not initially sold with this being a feature set. Who knows what bullshit they will be used for down the line
in reply to zephiriz

in reply to The_Sasswagon

Everything you said except for the last paragraph. We did fine for close to a century without traffic cams when it was up to a cop to catch a violator in the act. now it's surveillance cameras and A.I. that's automated the task and I consider akin to the police cheating at their jobs, yet somehow we still justify their ever-increasing budgets. -How does that not end up as a totalitarian police-state?
This entry was edited (3 weeks ago)
in reply to The_Sasswagon

This entry was edited (3 weeks ago)
in reply to The_Sasswagon

You do not have privacy in public how stupid are you? If your jogging on the street people can see you Wich means you are not private. Are people supposed to look away from you.
in reply to zephiriz

I like this down vote ratios. I wonder why? Just remember the same right that gives companies to record you in public is the same right that let's you record public officials in the course if their duties. All those ice officers abducting people. Fuck ICE.
in reply to zephiriz

afaik public officials are usually a different legal category that limit them in their freedoms. maybe it's an EU thing though, but I think recording their actions is explicitly allowed
in reply to WhyJiffie

I am from the US. Don't know about anywhere else. AFAIK there is no law granting exemption to public officials. And any law that trys to restrict filming or dissemination of public information gets shot down because of the first amendment of the US constitution. That is a special law.
in reply to zephiriz

But I also think you have no expectations of privacy in public.


yes I do. we are not going outside the house to become some kind of an actor. we also cannot just "go away", avoid some places because either that's where we live, where we work, or where we need to pass to travel between these places. but I guess it is easy to tell the "problematic" people to just go way.

I like pulling up traffic cameras and others local places cameras to see if cool things are going on.


"you should have no expectations of privacy in public because I want to watch if something cool happens on a traffic camera"

maybe go play sims if you want to behave like some god, watching peoples lives who did not consent to it, but you could also just watch some fucked up reality show on TV

maybe it was a bit harsh, sorry for that, but I don't know how to get the point across with better words.

in reply to WhyJiffie

No you don't have privacy in public why would you think that? It is literally the opposite of private your in public and gasp other people can look at you. I know shock and horror.
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Auli

because in normal circumstances what happens does not get recorded. I don't care about people who look at me. their ability to do that does not cause anything bad. their vision and hearing does not end up in some kind of database that can be used for automated analysis
in reply to WhyJiffie

in reply to zephiriz

in reply to WhyJiffie

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to WhyJiffie

Sorry for double post but here are some more, I think their great, YouTube channels that give more opinion and point of view from an American point of view and why I think there should be no expectations of privacy in a public space.

youtube.com/@firstamendmentpro…

youtube.com/@thearmedfisherman

youtube.com/@lacklustermedia

youtube.com/@dreadingcap

youtube.com/@thevillainscrime

youtube.com/@jamesfreeman1

youtube.com/@amagansettpress

youtube.com/@kultnews

There are many more. I do not wish to give this up because the person being filmed doesn't like it. They should act better and be a better person.

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to WhyJiffie

It's a sign of rot in our culture. People feel entitled to know everything about others around them. It's the same mindset whether it's trawling through security camera footage or stalking someone on social media or irl. Technology has accelerated the trend and reinvented voyeurism as a mainstream hobby
in reply to technocrit

TWO groups of conversation from this:
1. Public cameras
2. People having their own cameras on their own homes

Public cameras recording our private lives recorded MUST be fully regulated and accountable.
Private cameras slightly more tricky. I take the view that self hosting options are the best option. We need more devices that just work for the lay person. RING (and similar) should be considered a shit-show for privacy rights.

in reply to MrSulu

That's why I installed an analog camera DVR system in my home. It cheap, reliable, locally hosted, and best of all I'm the only one with access. (Not counting the Chinese government via the mandated backdoor in the DVR firmware) it's great!

EDIT: formatting

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to MrSulu

I would never. Ever have a security camera for personal use that uses some kind of cloud-only server. If I need to use a cloud service for a backup that is one thing. But it will primarily be an internal offline recording. Wired setups are superior here.