undefined | Better HN

0 pointszbentley3mo ago0 comments

> alerts LE to just ... "check in on you".

This is currently an epidemic. Drivers are targeted for “random” checks by police for a number of non-falsifiable factors (e.g. the evergreen “your license plate light was out…huh, looks fine now”) that overwhelmingly correlate with driver income and race.

That’s not whataboutism; I am genuinely not sure if ALPR/automated policing systems stand to make that situation worse or better. Are Flock and friends likely to be abused in the same way that human police traffic stop reasons are?

0 comments

FireBeyond3mo ago

I have every reason to believe so.

Flock's founders belief is that he wants to eliminate all crime (literally) with Flock.

So in his eyes, false positives are inherently acceptable, and preferable to false negatives.

And I feel that (actually, I know that, though I wasn't in Sales, but I did work at Flock) one of their selling points to agency is almost a "whitewashing" of such practices. "Oh, our PD wasn't targeting anyone, we were just acting on the recommendations of the Flock surveillance system".

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse