Comment by mullingitover
2 days ago
I worry that Flock is going to take the fall, and some other bad actor with political connections (my money would be on Palantir) will just quietly pick up where they left off while everyone's patting themselves on the back for defeating Flock.
The stuff Flock is doing is going to be standard AI-driven surveillance in the future, and unless the actual practices are made into political third rails and made into criminal code violations, they will absolutely be legalized on some party line vote in the middle of the night.
Don't make it 'stop Flock,' make it 'criminalize AI-driven surveillance.' Denounce 'conspiracy to implement ai-driven surveillance' as an inherently immoral activity punishable by prison time.
My money would be on Axon. They at least have a claim to the "hold police accountable" angle with bodycams and less-lethal weapons. Compared with Flock's "we'll watch you and what're you gonna do about it"
NPR reported they are already moving in with a competing product .
https://www.npr.org/2026/08/22/nx-s1-5931446/flock-fallout-c...
Axon's had ALPRs long before Flock existed, and the data management story is completely different. Flock was essentially a data warehouse with dark patterns around sharing settings that led to a lot of places defaulting open. Axon started out in bodycams and other direct-investigative tools, and their data management is very much focused on "the agency keeps its data" -- by default, data sharing requests have to be individually approved. You can't just type a plate number in and get hits nationwide.
The question is: will Axon enshittify their mature products in order to pursue that panopticon money?
>The question is: will Axon enshittify their mature products in order to pursue that panopticon money?
It would be an historic first if they didn't
Same problems long term with better marketing.
Fuck them both.
This is still a useful first step. Once “flock” becomes eponymous and a toxic political football, it can be applied to all future companies who do the same thing.
The word “Flock” is quickly becoming toxic, in the future we’ll be able to use it as a shorthand for all companies of this type. e.g. if I call something a cleanex everyone knows what I’m talking about regardless of whether Cleanex the company actually made the item being referred to. Similarly we’ll be able to just say “flock camera” and everyone will know what it is regardless of who makes the camera.
I think the point you're trying to make is undermined slightly by the fact that the word I think you're looking for is "Kleenex" not Cleanex. It took me a while to figure out what you were talking about, and I did some searching online to make sure I wasn't missing something about "Cleanex" in particular
I still agree with you though ."Flock Camera" is very likely to become the general term for "public surveillance camera" and it will carry a negative weight.
Sometimes a misspelling is for avoiding social media vampire lawyers.
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> and some other bad actor with political connections (my money would be on Palantir) will just quietly pick up where they left off while everyone's patting themselves on the back for defeating Flock
At that point, though, there will be a large group of people trained on how to defeat a company like Flock.
Legislation guardrails around surveillance technology are a necessary component to defend against future corporate surveillance apparatus establishment and operation, as this surveillance could take many forms (video, audio, geolocation, RF signatures, etc). Flock and Axon today, whatever unsavory folks come along in the future.
“Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work together for the benefit of all.” —- John Maynard Keynes
Guardrails because we cannot trust the human.
Gov. Abbott blocks state agencies from spending money on Flock cameras - https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/pa-state-senato...
Lawmakers added $1 to Texans’ car insurance policies. That money paid for thousands of Flock cameras.
In this thread, two posts up: people who want more powerful governments claim that "capitalism" is to blame for this state of affairs.
As an exercise, write the statute: how do you legally prevent Home Depot or Wal-Mart from videotaping their parking lots and adjacent streets as they've been doing for the past 3+ decades?
I'm genuinely curious how whatever you propose wouldn't be prior restraint.
I’m currently working with a representative on draft legislation, and will return once I have it and they move to introduce it. “You can just do things.”
The video capture is not the issue, but the data processing, retention, and sharing, which can trivially be regulated. CCTV for theft prevention and safety with a restricted retention period and no data sharing off the premises can remain legal. Data broker legislation adjacent.
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>they will absolutely be legalized on some party line vote in the middle of the night.
Or they'll be legalized piecemeal and you'll get sneered at by the useful idiots for opposing each incremental step based on principal.
they'll find a particularly violent crime and use that as the strawman... "Oh you dont want this? well i guess you support violent immigrant mass murderers then!"
and then before you know it the state has implemented its mass surveillance apparatus across the entire country. And we though china's social credits were bad? just IMAGINE what those predatory tech bros are cookin up.
As a higher level comment points out, my fear is that Flock will end up being the straw man, happily torn down in favor of more outwardly palatable but privately onerous player(s).
They could even start identifying "pre-crime" :)
Not as far fetched as it sounds even. Plenty of not-quite-a-crime things they could track if desired.
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I mean, is that even a strawman? You can oppose mass AI surveillance and acknowledge the price of that is more crime.
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Exactly my thoughts. Flock has been brazen on so many things, that second-movers with a modicum of political savvy can come assuage all the major Flock-FUD, while in fact being significantly worse.
After watching the public flaying of Flock, they're certainly welcome to step into the spotlight next and convince the public that they're different.
> they will absolutely be legalized on some party line vote in the middle of the night.
What would be legalized? You realize that recording people in public is already legal, right? I'm puzzled where people are getting the idea that Flock is doing something illegal.
you're being deliberately daft. Its not the recording, its the surveillance dragnet with zero regulation or oversight that creates an instant dossier on whatever datapoints are searched for, by whomever decides to search for them who has paid for access.
Honestly the nuance isn't that intellectually taxing and having to explain it to people in the tech space is tiresome.
You're calling me daft yet you couldn't be bothered to answer the question. What is going the be legalized, as the above commenter wrote? What law is Flock breaking presently?
Like it or not recording and photographing people in public, then selling that information is not illegal. Paparazzi do it all the time. You can point a webcam out your window, run ALPR software on the video feed, and sell access to query that information. Nothing about that is illegal. If it is, then please reference the laws that prohibit this.
People talk about privacy laws being violated, but in general privacy laws do not cover public activity. Privacy laws mostly focus on protecting communications and activities carried out in private.
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