Concerns about personal safety and privacy for police officers due to tracking technologies

Signals over time

3 observed signals across 1 sources, tracked for 5 days. Confidence: low.

What people are saying Observed

• “Why do you think it is now an issue? Flock is a private company where other traffic cameras I'm familiar with were not. Those were problematic and in my state they were deemed not legal and removed. The other type of cameras I'm not a fan of are the ones for the toll roads. They take shots of license plates even if you have a tag. I don't know if they are searchable by law enforcement, but I have no reason to think they are not. Any camera system that can be used to track people even if that's not the sole purpose is problematic, but when the entire purpose of the camera is tracking people then it is especially egregious. It's not a problem now, but they've turned the knob to an 11.”

  Hacker News · complaint

• “> Not quite the same. Attaching a GPS tracker involves physical trespass Why does that matter? If your car is in public, do you not have any right to it's privacy either? > and can track a person to non-public locations. ... what does that even mean? All locations are public, because by definition, locations only exist in public. What location have you been to that permits no one to see you arrive and later leave? > Also, collecting data does not restrict one’s freedom of moment. I mean, if that data can be used to imprison you, I think it's just matters of gradation whether you consider that true or false. > Nor is it stalking. Stalking is a pattern of conduct designed to intimidate or inflict emotional distress. But it clearly is. It's both a way to dragnet the public from doing illicit things, and it's deployed with a common selling point of reducing crime. You can say that instilling emotional distress in criminals is good but that also means you're doing that to at least some amount of the public. > If knowing that someone else knows you were at a particular location at a particular time causes you distress, you have issues. I do have is”

  Hacker News · frustration

• “So the cops visited and talked to him, but didn't pursue any charges or issue any warnings. He was free to pursue his project (so far). >“One of [the officers] took the time to specifically mention how scary it would be for them, because people would be able to find out where they lived, when they got on their shift and what they were doing throughout the day, and that that type of powerful information could put them personally at risk [from] any bad apples that might want to track them down.” I know we're supposed to distill everything down to a "them vs us" mentality. But cops have been tracked down and killed by people using apps like Waze so it's not a completely unwarranted fear. This also isn't an apples and oranges situation. A Flock database isn't public - police have access but at least ostensibly have oversight from the legal system. That's a much different set of concerns than the "UNO reverse card" the TikToker is trying to make it to be.”

  Hacker News · frustration