Dissecting Flock Safety: The Cameras Tracking You Are a Security Nightmare [video]
16 comments
·November 16, 2025baby_souffle
Ooof. When I heard "android things" I knew they had a problem. It was a google project that had little adoption and was killed only a few years after it was announced (so, better than average for google, then?).
I wonder what they estimate the "replace with newer" cost to be versus the "figure out how to deploy $modernAndroid fleet wide" costs. Bonus points if you express it as a percentage of CEO's compensation / company wide revenue.
echelon
These cameras are showing up everywhere in my state. It's creepy. I had no idea what they were, and now suddenly they're at every intersection, gas station, you name it.
I don't like that the government is tracking everyone's movements so openly. I knew they were doing this with cell phone data, but that wasn't so brazen.
diogenes_atx
Here in Austin, the city council no longer allows Flock ALPR's (automated license plate readers) on city streets, but Home Depot and other businesses still use them in their parking lots, and they scan your vehicle license plate every time you enter and exit the premises. Flock sells its data to ICE and law enforcement.
wldcordeiro
Plus they'll position them close to an intersection in the parking lot of a business so they can get around something like the restriction Austin put in.
garrettlangley
That’s inaccurate. We do not sell data.
CharlesW
Correct. Flock sells cameras and platform access, but gives data from their shared, nationwide surveillance utility to ICE and law enforcement.
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/flock-massachus...
https://www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enabled-...
https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/surveillance-com...
y-c-o-m-b
As the CEO of Flock, don't you feel you have more information to offer this community outside of the "we do not sell data" statement you've made over and over? The fact that you do not engage here in the ethical aspects of your product doesn't look good for you and only deepens suspicion that something darker is going on behind your doors.
null
notrealyme123
that's an odly specific answer.
throwaway101012
[dead]
extropic-engine
did you know that flock has a data sharing contract with ring cameras? amazon’s panopticon is much larger. i believe it is on by default and users have to manually opt out, but i don’t have a ring camera to verify.
garrettlangley
That’s inaccurate. It’s opt-in, police request footage in a geofence, and as a Ring user, you can select to share or not. The police are only notified if you chose to share.
CharlesW
Only sharing specific clips is opt-in¹, but the program and its notifications are on by default. Maybe not surprisingly, consumers aren't asked if they want to participate, and the option is buried enough that most people will never see it.
¹ I'm being generous here. Police can still obtain Ring footage via warrants or "emergency" requests that don’t involve the user choosing to share anything.
vanc_cefepime
Feel free to place a disclosure that you are a cofounder of Flock.
null
"Find Nearby Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR)" (70 comments), https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45487452
Adversarial computer vision and DIY OSS $250 RPi Hailo ALPR (2M views), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp9MwZkHiMQ
"Tire Pressure Sensor IDs: Why, Where and When (2015)" (30 comments), https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45490202