It seems like this article buried the best lede of the story on paragraph ten, which explains Flock's new business of surveillance drones launched in response to 911 calls (and also presumably triggered by other alerts configured by police and private businesses).
> Flock has recently expanded into other technologies... Most concerning are the latest Flock drones equipped with high-powered cameras. Flock's "Drone as First Responder" platform automates drone operations, including launching them in response to 911 calls or gunfire. Flock's drones, which reach speeds up to 60 mph, can follow vehicles or people and provide information to law enforcement.
This is much less concerning to me than mass surveillance. If someone calls 911 and you need to send a first responder, why not send a drone to get there faster while a person is on their way?
Because today it will be used as a first responder.
Tomorrow a police officer will suggest that these drones (that we are already using successfully) could be very useful for checking up on that "dangerous" neighborhood.
Hi, I'm in Denver. They're already doing this over on Colfax. It's a significant change vs the existing halo cameras, because they use the drones to follow people.
Hello, James Cameron and his Dark Angel series:
https://www.google.com/search?q=dark+angel+hoverdrone
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...and now you have actual domestic surveillance bots, instead of the silent CIA Blackhawks we used to joke about.
As a concept, first responder drones are a good idea. But I wouldn't want public services having anything to do with that company.
If the drones are "providing information" to the police, it's only a matter of time before their AI hallucinates something that gets someone killed. We've already seen AI gun detection services that report things like Doritos bags as guns.
OTOH it will provide more surveillance of the police themselves. Humans are also bad at gun detection (sometimes willfully so) and this provides another check.
How exactly does this provide more surveillance of the police themselves? I've done about ten FOIA lawsuits against police departments and it's laughable to think that they won't just lock footage away and exempt it from the public's eyes. Probably through a trade secret exemption because private companies are involved.
Watch for Flock footage to be "unavailable"/"deleted"/"corrupt" just as often as bodycam footage is.
Not as often; it creates friction and requires cooperation from others (or an officer with unusual skill and access, presumably).
It will absolutely happen in corrupt departments, or those involving an officer with those skills and access. But data that is uploaded is infinitely harder to erase than simply turning off the camera in the first place.
That's right. And also just like the missing epstein footage.
Because it's a social problem, not a technology problem.
At the same time, just because these instances of "missing" tape happen, does not mean that body cams and jailhouse CCTV are useless. We would not take those away. Likewise for the future drone footage
It's a very bleak (and awfully sus) outlook if you think providing more information to people who need to make decisions that could save or end lives is a bad thing.
Those people have proven very untrustworthy and are structurally unaccountable.
It's more "sus" that you blindly trust the police, politicians, and billionaires that have a history of discrimination, violence, and oppression and attempt to slander those who don't. Not to mention blindly trusting AI systems with someone's life - the only reason one would do that is because they either stand to profit from it or don't understand how they work. Are you really willing and eager to put your life in the hands of a piece of software that can't distinguish a gun and a Doritos bag?
Remember, oppression and invasion of privacy is still bad even if it isn't currently happening to you. If you think you can't be a target, you're sorely mistaken.
You are giving those people the benefit of the doubt. It's been proven many many times that police will use "more information" to excuse their own decision to use violence. A decision that they already made well before the incident.
If you give me long enough, I can find something to charge anyone with.
At least their current cameras are fixed to a single point.
With their drones they now have cameras roaming freely everywhere.
I'm sorry but, in what way is a swarm of surveillance drones NOT a mass surveillance system?
What's the drone gonna do?
Likely: Scan everyone's home while en-route to the 911 call with an infrared camera. Or scan all of the license plates and faces of people along the way.
Possible: Perhaps crash into someone? Or worse.
> Scan everyone's home while en-route to the 911 call with an infrared camera.
That's unconstitutional. Use a regular camera and it's fine for some reason.
And then what? Hover over me as I'm dying?
Yes. If you called from your cell phone while on foot or in your car, the drone can find your exact location and hover over you until help arrives, quicker than if EMS has to search you out themselves.
How so? I ask as a paramedic of 14 years, now retired.
If EMS has to "search you out" so does the drone.
At least in my County, we actually get very good triangulation info from 911. It was very rare that Dispatch told us they only had Level 2(IIRC) location info (which might be to several hundred feet).
FAR more common was people who actually told us the -wrong- location. Car accidents that were several miles up the road from their location. Saying Blah St SE when they meant Blah Rd NE, etc.
Drones don't solve for that problem. They're going to the wrong location, too.
> If EMS has to "search you out" so does the drone.
The point is that the drone is fast enough to arrive first, and do the searching so that you don't have to. It's just one of many possible scenarios.
I totally understand the argument that this might not be the most effective use of money, but I honestly don't understand the lack of appreciation for the number of places this could be used effectively.
I want to see who is in a location. I get a plant to call 911, which triggers Flock drones in the general area and scans the faces of everyone it can find. I get that info from Flock.
There are always security concerns and exploits. Some crazy gamers call 911 swat attacks on people; that doesn't mean that the police shouldn't have guns, or that 911 should be turned off.
Yes, the drones should be secure. Yes there should be measures to make sure that they're not abused. But none of that takes away from anything i've said, which is ONLY to point out the situations where they could be useful. And people seem to be having a very negative visceral reaction to even considering the possibility.
Also, i'm not recommending or supporting Flock, just the concept of drone use in general.
Ok. I live in a small, flat city with few trees. So why did my police department buy these?
Obviously I don't know the specifics of your city, but in general there are a lot of scenarios where it's valuable to get to a scene very quickly (no traffic, etc.) and obtain reconnaissance. Especially violent scenes, or it could even be a drunk driver who is still on the move, or a stolen car where the perpetrators are likely to flee on foot if stopped.
I'm sure you can come up with a lot more ideas using your imagination.
Thanks for the explanation. I will ask my local city council to spend the money elsewhere.
Sounds like a scam
One of the best reasons is that a very large % of calls can be cleared without anyone actually going to the scene. Many cities using drones as first responders now report that they clear ~30% of calls with just a drone. This is great for small cities/towns that struggle to recruit officers and have had ballooning labor costs for police in order to get people to work there. Its also great philosophically if you want police to be involved less, because it dramatically lowers the amount of time they are going to scenes
Can they drive straight to you at 60mph without stopping?
Got it, a surveillance missile.
Common missiles go about 900 mph faster...
There's more than one definition of missile. Florida criminal code's just one place where a drone could be considered a "missile".
Florida criminal code:
Yeah this doesn't bother me in any way, shape, or form. We already have manned aircraft that respond to such things, unmanned aircraft are a strictly better solution. It makes sense for police and it makes even more sense for fire. An aircraft can arrive at the site of a reported fire while firemen are still buckling their pants.
You get manned aircraft to come and check in before the police when you call 911?
In high school in the mid 2000s in Denver, they had a chopper in the air on weekend nights from 8 until 2:30 am or so.
When our parties got called in, the spotlight would be the warning that the cops were a few minutes away and it was time to run.
Lots of cities have manned aircraft loitering during busy times that will respond to a call before ground units
Yes, often the first response to some calls is a CHP aircraft that continuously loiters in the area.
There is an endless list of infractions to civil liberties that would "Make sense for police".
That’s actually really cool and I don’t feel like it’s invasive. It’s surveillance in a specific location for a specific purpose and in response to certain emergencies. Active shooter is probably the first thing that comes to mind, but accidents, fires, unexpected disasters, etc. could all be situations where this technology helps assess the situation and inform response.
"CITIZEN there has been a report of a shooting in the area, please remain motionless as we scan your face for biometrics.
Scan complete. Please do not move or attempt to leave the area until you have been notified via the 'GovernmentForYou' app that you are cleared to leave the area.
Because you have been identified in the active area police have been granted legal probable cause to search your home. Please unlock your homes doors via any smart home app you have to prevent the authorities from forcibly removing your door onsite
Notification. Citizen because of your scan you have been identified as committing a bank fraud case in North Dakota and will be detained and transported (the move process takes 2-4 weeks). Once in North Dakota your right to a speedy trial will start if you are held more than the reasonable 60 day administration period.
Have a good day citizen and thank you for your cooperation."
In Southern California we have eye-wateringly expensive (and loud) police aircraft flying 24x7.
I’m not a fan of Flock but I would welcome anything that knocks out some of the ghetto birds’ budget.
They do more than that - our local PD gave a presentation on what Flock’s pitching - ALPRs, fixed pan/tilt cameras, “citizen cameras,” drones, and a whole “sensor fusion” software suite that lets you stitch in everything along with data from surrounding precincts which also have Flock (think Palantir for local cops). We were pretty shocked at the scale.
Hunter-Killers not far behind.
Nor is the Butlerian Jihad.
I can anticipate this starting to happen: shoot into the sky, wait for flock drone to start coming in, then shoot it! Free target practice!
Code 8-style cop drone drops incoming
Thank you for finding this nugget, I really only read HN comments and rarely the source material. You all have been my LLM summary for a decade at least.