The Flock saga continues.

A handful of police departments that use Flock have unwittingly leaked details of millions of surveillance targets and a large number of active police investigations around the country because they have failed to redact license plates information in public records releases. Flock responded to this revelation by threatening a site that exposed it and by limiting the information the public can get via public records requests.

Completely unredacted Flock audit logs have been released to the public by numerous police departments and in some cases include details on millions Flock license plate searches made by thousands of police departments from around the country. The data has been turned into a searchable tool on a website called HaveIBeenFlocked.com, which says it has data on more than 2.3 million license plates and tens of millions of Flock searches.

The situation highlights one of the problems with taking a commercial surveillance product and turning it into a searchable, connected database of people’s movements and of the police activity of thousands of departments nationwide. It also highlights the risks associated with relying on each and every law enforcement customer to properly and fully redact identifiable information any time someone requests public records; in this case, single mistakes by individual police departments have exposed potentially sensitive information about surveillance targets and police investigations by other departments around the country.

Archive: http://archive.today/yXLPQ

  • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    16 hours ago

    Yup, and its important to communicate that or we risk losing our voice in the general public and look like Luddites

    • Feyd@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      15 hours ago

      Just FYI, using the term luddite derogatorily may not be as cool as you think it is. They were essentially an instance of organized labor flexing their power and not really “against technological advancement” like the term gets bandied about.

      • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        15 hours ago

        I am aware, but i am using it in a colloquial sense. And you understood my point; which is exactly how the general public that needs to be swayed will interpret it.

          • jaybone@lemmy.zip
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            13 hours ago

            Originally the Pedants were a group of trans atheist Linux users from Pedantia, so I won’t use it as a pejorative in this context.

          • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            15 hours ago

            Uhh okay? Language and its use changes. If you want to be effective in getting your point across you need to keep up. The choir in lemmy isn’t who needs to be persuaded.

            Feel free to be technically correct, but I would like to see the idea take mass adoption instead.

            • ripcord@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              10 hours ago

              technically correct

              Despite the memes, also typically not the best kind of correct.

              Before someone says it.