Sensor Tracks Who Is Driving in Your Neighborhood

[Megalith]

A startup called Flock is offering a device that lets residents monitor who drives in and out of their neighborhood: for $50 a year, it’ll log the plates of every car that drives into a street and takes a picture. Residents of monitored neighborhoods may opt out, but visitors cannot. The tool has supposedly been used to identify and convict a road bike thief already.

A privacy expert said he believed the data collection to be legal according to US law, but that the idea could ignite a debate about the "right to be left alone in public”. “One of the great weaknesses in US privacy law is that we only protect against intrusions into private areas, not public spaces,” said Albert Gidari, director of privacy at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society. "Public roads through neighbourhoods, licence plates, pedestrians on public sidewalks etc all are fair game," he said. The data is only made available to “neighbourhood leaders”, Flock says, and is a tool that could be used to fight crime.

 

[Gigus Fire]

I see no problem with this. They already use similar systems for parking tickets/towing enforcement. If the local government is already keeping tabs on people on public streets, why not private citizens? It doesn't even need a positive spin like tracking down bike thefts.

 

[Seventyfive]

I live about 20 yards from an elementary school and I see people blow through the stop sign at 30mph constantly. I wish I could record every plate since it's only a matter of time till one of these idiots hits a kid.

 

[spugm1r3]

I'm fighting a violent reaction to this. For every step to protect our physical selves, our sense of security, we take someone else's sense of privacy. This isn't like putting locks on our doors, or a gate on our community, where access comes with an explicit agreement to be monitored. This is a step closer to existence being an implicit agreement to be monitored. Not a fan.

 

[Gigus Fire]

I'm fighting a violent reaction to this. For every step to protect our physical selves, our sense of security, we take someone else's sense of privacy. This isn't like putting locks on our doors, or a gate on our community, where access comes with an explicit agreement to be monitored. This is a step closer to existence being an implicit agreement to be monitored. Not a fan.

It's already being done on a constant level. Police use it, parking/towing enforcement use it. Private detectives already have access to it. It's as simple as a camera with an ocr function to read license plates and save it in a database.
They did a study not so long ago with ez-pass (which i know there are several different flavors of, but in the east coast that's our automatic toll paying device). Some researchers found out that the tag was being read all over the place (not just at tolls) to track people: https://webcache.googleusercontent....ust-at-toll-booths/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
I know it's not exactly the same, but when you boil it down, it is the same. Combine that with cell phone tracking and pretty much don't expect privacy when you're out in public.

 

[EchoWars]

“One of the great weaknesses in US privacy law is that we only protect against intrusions into private areas, not public spaces,” said Albert Gidari,

That's not a weakness, that's just how the world works.

 

[OldGator]

People without accountability should not be collecting said data.

 

[cyclone3d]

And now the thieves will either just cover up their license plates or put on stolen/fake plates when entering neighborhoods they are stealing from.

 

[Spidey329]

Don't give my HOA any ideas.

 

[Azphira]

I don't know where my mind is at the moment, I read "Sensor Tracks Who Is Driving in Your Neighborhood" as "Sensor Tracks Who Is Dying in Your Neighborhood"

 

[Exavior]

I don't know where my mind is at the moment, I read "Sensor Tracks Who Is Driving in Your Neighborhood" as "Sensor Tracks Who Is Dying in Your Neighborhood"

That would be everyone.

 

[virtualheretic]

If somebody in my neighborhood installed one of those devices, I would smash it with a baseball bat.

 

[nutzo]

A much as I dislike big brother, I have mixed feelings on this as I hate criminals ever more.

Something like this would have come in handy when my house was burglarized many years ago.

 

[Elf_Boy]

I am not liking this.

Aside from who decides on the special neighborhood leaders that can access the information I see all sorts of abuse potential.

A few decades back the city of Pleasant Hill did not want to have an adult bookstore. They probably still dont. Back then ( into the 90's) the police would publish the licence plate numbers of everyone who parked in front of said store.

No matter that right next to the book store was a Chinese restaurant.

It is not just the collecting of the data -- how it is used is a big deal.

I can see people deciding they dont like group X and using this info to harass and keep them out of their neighborhood.

"I dont want you visiting Billy up the street you pervert and I'll know if you have been here."

 

[lcpiper]

People without accountability should not be collecting said data.

But you can do it yourself, and so can anyone else. You can sit right down at the street corner and take pictures of every car that passes, write down their license plate numbers, put it into a database if you want to and you don't need anyone's permission. Not when they are out in public.

 

[lcpiper]

If somebody in my neighborhood installed one of those devices, I would smash it with a baseball bat.

Because you like living in small spaces with close room mates ?

 

[lcpiper]

And now the thieves will either just cover up their license plates or put on stolen/fake plates when entering neighborhoods they are stealing from.

Which makes it easier to catch them. Good plates don't ring any bells, fake or stolen plates are a neon sign saying "stop me". These measures worked when it was humans reading plates and checking analog records, but cameras checking databases send up red flags real fast, with pics.'

 

[OldGator]

But you can do it yourself, and so can anyone else. You can sit right down at the street corner and take pictures of every car that passes, write down their license plate numbers, put it into a database if you want to and you don't need anyone's permission. Not when they are out in public.

And it should be illegal.

 

[percydaman]

I live about 20 yards from an elementary school and I see people blow through the stop sign at 30mph constantly. I wish I could record every plate since it's only a matter of time till one of these idiots hits a kid.

The same. It's a back path to the school that has become popular with people who don't wanna wait in line in their cars to drop off their little snowflake. So now my street is a mess of vehicles in the morning and afternoon. People driving way to fast, blocking the road and mail boxes just when the postal truck is coming by. It's absurd. I don't know how this would help things though.

 

[Daroller]

Oh hell no. This is a private company spying on and logging private citizens' movements. How can this even be legal? If this shit ever comes North of the border you can bet your ass I'm writing some representatives.

 

[Daroller]

But you can do it yourself, and so can anyone else. You can sit right down at the street corner and take pictures of every car that passes, write down their license plate numbers, put it into a database if you want to and you don't need anyone's permission. Not when they are out in public.

Sure, but you CAN'T set up that logging across an entire city yourself. You won't be able to track which neighborhoods a car is entering or leaving, and cross reference that against another person's database. At least here in Canada you would QUICKLY run afoul of privacy laws (the way it should be).

Moreover, once you start bringing additional unmanned stations into your surveillance network you are no longer performing this activity yourself. Then you are allowing other private citizens to decide who gets access to this data... it gets even worse if you sell access to your data without some form of "opt out" for affected people.

If your government were performing this sort of surveillance half this board would be up in arms. It's okay because it's a private company? GTFO of here.

 

[Daroller]

I live about 20 yards from an elementary school and I see people blow through the stop sign at 30mph constantly. I wish I could record every plate since it's only a matter of time till one of these idiots hits a kid.

So contact your local law enforcement and ask them to set up a speed trap in the school zone. I've done that very thing here many times, and it works. Speeding through my neighborhood has dropped dramatically since they started setting up the traps.

Invading the privacy of everyone is not how you change the behavior of the bad actors. You go after the problem itself.

Jesus, 9/11 did a number on the average American citizen's critical thinking skills, didn't it?

 

[cyclone3d]

And it should be illegal.

Why?

 

[cyclone3d]

Which makes it easier to catch them. Good plates don't ring any bells, fake or stolen plates are a neon sign saying "stop me". These measures worked when it was humans reading plates and checking analog records, but cameras checking databases send up red flags real fast, with pics.'

So what if somebody is towing a project car or something that doesn't have plates? Does it call the police on them as well?

You can't just flag everything on wheels that doesn't have plates. You also can't flag anything right off the bat that has plates either. You can have damaged plates or vehicles with plates that are too dirty to read properly.

This HAS to be an after the fact thing where they can go an look at the info during the timeframe of a robbery to see what vehicles entered and/or left around the same time.

And if the person does remove or put stolen/fake plates on the vehicle, it is not like they are going to leave them on afterwards unless they are total morons.

All they have to do is use a very common vehicle with a very common color and then it would be like trying to find a piece of hay in a needle stack.

 

[OldGator]

Why?

Because absent of a court order, warrant, or legitimate law enforcement purpose nobody should be doing that.

 

[nutzo]

And if the person does remove or put stolen/fake plates on the vehicle, it is not like they are going to leave them on afterwards unless they are total morons.

Most common criminals ARE total morons. That's why they eventually get caught.

The smart criminals go after more lucrative crimes and generally don't bother with robbing middle class homes or stealing stuff out of peoples cars.

 

[Gigus Fire]

Because absent of a court order, warrant, or legitimate law enforcement purpose nobody should be doing that.

Do you live in america?

 

[OldGator]

Yes, and, for what it's worth I opposed the passage of the Patriot Act and other forms of mass surveillance that are used to spy on Americans.

The only entities with a legitimate purpose to collecting and/or running my plate would be toll enforcement (for toll roads or perhaps city owned parking) or law enforcement along with the state DMV or tax collector's office (obviously). Nobody else should be allowed to collect my plate and run it to learn anything about me. There's no legitimate purpose for doing so.

 

[dgingeri]

Sounds like a great thing to me. People should not have any right to privacy in public, duh. It's public. If you want privacy, go to a private place. This would doubtlessly save millions in robberies.

 

[OldGator]

"It's not our data - it’s the neighborhood’s data - and we delete it after 30 days."

One of many lies. They admit to keeping it on their own servers and right now opting out even by residents is not possible (according to their website). There is no obligation to delete it after 30 days.

These same people who started Flock have been involved in many app/software development creations in the past whose main purpose was to build large customer databases.

In some states now even the police are prohibited by law from using automatic license plate scanners unless it's directly related to a criminal investigation.

What right does Flock have to anyone's data?

 

[Gigus Fire]

Yes, and, for what it's worth I opposed the passage of the Patriot Act and other forms of mass surveillance that are used to spy on Americans.

The only entities with a legitimate purpose to collecting and/or running my plate would be toll enforcement (for toll roads or perhaps city owned parking) or law enforcement along with the state DMV or tax collector's office (obviously). Nobody else should be allowed to collect my plate and run it to learn anything about me. There's no legitimate purpose for doing so.

There is no public database for looking up license plates. Only law enforcement or code enforcement has it. The idea behind it is to track all guests in the system (not normal people driving through the area) and then use it for aligning incident data (robbery, theft, etc) with those cars who aren't normally traveling through the area. Then they pass that info to police and the police do a quick lookup. I'm thinking 9/10 those with prior convictions are the same folk who are committing the crimes and the police know it.
How is this even harmful? You have no right to privacy in public. Anyone can take a picture of you.
Now i oppose government doing this in general because they have the power to take away your freedom. Using it to determine who's guilty just by being in an area could lead to some faulty accusations, but for a private citizen doing this by his own home? I say go for it.

 

[lcpiper]

And it should be illegal.

Why?

 

[lcpiper]

Sure, but you CAN'T set up that logging across an entire city yourself. You won't be able to track which neighborhoods a car is entering or leaving, and cross reference that against another person's database. At least here in Canada you would QUICKLY run afoul of privacy laws (the way it should be).

Moreover, once you start bringing additional unmanned stations into your surveillance network you are no longer performing this activity yourself. Then you are allowing other private citizens to decide who gets access to this data... it gets even worse if you sell access to your data without some form of "opt out" for affected people.

If your government were performing this sort of surveillance half this board would be up in arms. It's okay because it's a private company? GTFO of here.

I never said "it's OK".

Someone said that people without accountability shouldn't be collecting such data, and I said, why not, any of us can already do just that.

Here is the first issue he brought up, "accountability". What is accountability? It means that someones is going to be held accountable to someone else right? Now as private citizens, why should one private citizen be held accountable to another unless some agreement has been made between them? I'm just out doing my thing, what's it to you?

See, I get that my government should have some limits on such things cause they are the cops, run the jails, have the Army, all that stuff. They have the power to fuck with you. But as a citizen, what power do I have over you if I know something about you? I'm not going to put you in jail or anything like that so what's the deal? Why so worried?

What is it I have to be accountable for?

If I cause you some harm, there is a civil court system for that right? So what's the big deal about your privacy when you aren't being private?

OH, and just for the record, you can leave off the "Private" part of private company, it's doesn't mean anything at all in this discussion. A private company is just privately owned, as opposed to publicly owned as in a company who's stocks are publicly traded.

 

[Kalabalana]

Knowing the driving habits of people is valuable, so is attaching video and facial recognition software to the data collection

 

[Exavior]

Everyone is ignoring how great the blackmail money can be. At 7:05 am Mr Smith leaves the area, at 7:10am Mr Jones drives into the area. He leaves at 5:10pm just in time for Mr Smith to arrive back at 5:40pm. Just think of how much you can make off of Mr Jones and Mrs Smith.

 

[wizdum]

The same. It's a back path to the school that has become popular with people who don't wanna wait in line in their cars to drop off their little snowflake. So now my street is a mess of vehicles in the morning and afternoon. People driving way to fast, blocking the road and mail boxes just when the postal truck is coming by. It's absurd. I don't know how this would help things though.

At the school I worked for previously, the drop-off area was a complete circle, with the idea that parents would just continue driving around until a space became available. What actually happened was parents would pull over on the left hand side of the road (facing oncoming traffic), and kick their children out the passenger doors INTO TRAFFIC and then drive off. Just about every morning I would come around the corner and have to come to a complete stop because of children standing in the middle of the road. Sometimes I think being a parent should require a license, renewed yearly.

 

[Elf_Boy]

So contact your local law enforcement and ask them to set up a speed trap in the school zone. I've done that very thing here many times, and it works. Speeding through my neighborhood has dropped dramatically since they started setting up the traps.

Invading the privacy of everyone is not how you change the behavior of the bad actors. You go after the problem itself.

Jesus, 9/11 did a number on the average American citizen's critical thinking skills, didn't it?

Nothing changed in terms of average critical thinking skills -- the internet is just helping everyone see a broader cross section of the average Joe/

 

[jeremyshaw]

I like my HOA, but I would never, ever trust them with any amount of information or power. Too many little things they deliberately overlook, simply because it doesn't affect them. Then when it does (i.e, the problem reaches their front lawns), they go all out. They also love claiming credit when none is deserved. These were nice people when I first met them ~15 years ago. I suppose power corrupts, and if information is power, then it should be kept from them.

 

[OldGator]

There is no public database for looking up license plates. Only law enforcement or code enforcement has it. The idea behind it is to track all guests in the system (not normal people driving through the area) and then use it for aligning incident data (robbery, theft, etc) with those cars who aren't normally traveling through the area. Then they pass that info to police and the police do a quick lookup. I'm thinking 9/10 those with prior convictions are the same folk who are committing the crimes and the police know it.
How is this even harmful? You have no right to privacy in public. Anyone can take a picture of you.
Now i oppose government doing this in general because they have the power to take away your freedom. Using it to determine who's guilty just by being in an area could lead to some faulty accusations, but for a private citizen doing this by his own home? I say go for it.

Well there are lots of exceptions to the law that regulates who can and cannot access ownership information with regards to looking up a license plate (it's called the Driver's Privacy Protection Act). It's conceivable that Flock can get an exception and use the vast database of license plates under its control to abuse that power since it's fairly easy to do considering most states are willing to sell your information to marketers for cash.

This isn't about some company being benevolent and setting up some system to help people solve crimes. The people who want to install these cameras must pay a monthly fee + a fee based on how many residents live in the area + other fees. Flock makes a bunch of money and gets a giant database of names, addresses, and phone numbers in return. Or your local neighborhood asshole who set up this system can use that information to blackmail people because there's no accountability.

Also simply being in public is not an open license that your privacy is automatically waived. For example if you are secluded then someone needs express consent to take your photo - this includes being in your car, inside your house, physically going to/from a doctor's office, going to the bank, etc.

 

[Gigus Fire]

Well there are lots of exceptions to the law that regulates who can and cannot access ownership information with regards to looking up a license plate (it's called the Driver's Privacy Protection Act). It's conceivable that Flock can get an exception and use the vast database of license plates under its control to abuse that power since it's fairly easy to do considering most states are willing to sell your information to marketers for cash.

This isn't about some company being benevolent and setting up some system to help people solve crimes. The people who want to install these cameras must pay a monthly fee + a fee based on how many residents live in the area + other fees. Flock makes a bunch of money and gets a giant database of names, addresses, and phone numbers in return. Or your local neighborhood asshole who set up this system can use that information to blackmail people because there's no accountability.

Also simply being in public is not an open license that your privacy is automatically waived. For example if you are secluded then someone needs express consent to take your photo - this includes being in your car, inside your house, physically going to/from a doctor's office, going to the bank, etc.

Do you live in america? If you do, there's only a handful of places where you need someone's consent to take their picture in public. The general rule of thumb is that if i can see you in public, i can take a picture.