Obviously an unpopular opinion on this site, but I wish we had speed cameras, red-light cameras, and ALPRs everywhere. Cars are incredibly dangerous and large numbers of people drive them like absolute lunatics. There should be absolutely no expectation of privacy when using public streets. That position doesn't even account for the footage helping immensely with other investigations.
They are great for tracking criminals who cross state lines for medical care.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/10/flock-safety-and-texas...
Part of the problem is the people reacting to the data. Cops coming at an innocent someone, guns drawn, because of database and human error. If that person weren't so calm and level headed in the moment, when they were attacked by confused and mistaken aggressors, would they still be alive?
https://www.thedrive.com/news/how-flock-cameras-wrongly-trac...
I don't disagree: bad policing is a terrible issue. That does not mean we should prevent investigating stolen vehicles because a human might enter the characters incorrectly. I don't even understand how this story happened:
> In fact, four other 34 ## DTM cars were being tracked around Minnesota that week, according to Officer Ganshyn
Maybe we need even more AI, because I think Claude would probably flag this as goofy. No human involved thought that it was wild they would stop something like 100 or 1,296 vehicles?
> There should be absolutely no expectation of privacy when using public streets.
Strong disagree. Life in public areas is often still part of private life. And we should treat it with the respect and privacy that it deserves. You going to the doctor? That's part of your private life. You meeting with an old friend to catch up? Also private, even though you do it in a public cafe.
In the USA? Any café you go to is reasonably likely to have cameras, both inside and outside. If you mean driving to a doctor's office, you probably pass by hundreds of cameras along the way: video doorbells, dash cams, Teslas, Waymos, gas stations, ATMs, traffic-flow cameras, etc. If you are in one of the many cities with tens of thousands of existing non-Flock cameras, you are likely passing many more.
I also disagree with OP.
It seems like (to my very uneducated mind) the founders were worried about the tyranny of government. We have the bill of rights and a constitution designed to limit government powers.
But then there are people who weaponize rights against the people in favor of the government.
A private company creating a mass-surveillance network of tracking everyone in public is absolutely a weaponization of rights. Rights designed to keep our government accountable. Our rights that give us tools to prevent government from weaponizing privacy against us (secret juries, secret trials, secret government employees, records etc citing 'privacy' as a reason for secrecy).
You managed to say everything but the difficult bit. People don't generally have a problem with cameras, all our computers and phones have one. The problem is who can use them and when.
Personally I have nothing against municipally operated red light/speed camera system because those are triggered by a sensor rather than continuous so privacy is less of an issue.
I agree. I was able to talk to my local SF supervisor the other day and congratulate him on his work with speed cameras and red-light cameras. He shares the same position as you: there is no constitutional right to drive one's car on public streets without enforcement of the rules.
We recently got permission to expand red-light cameras and I'm hoping that this kind of neutral machine-based enforcement of laws helps move us to a more law-abiding society. Civil liberties require civilization. Abdicating public space to the anti-social only allows for a de-facto rule by the uncivilized.
Personally I agree with the desire for more traffic enforcement, even if it means I personally would suffer because frankly I like driving fast. But as a cyclist who also likes riding fast, and a parent to likes giving freedom to children, safer roads would be great.
The problem is that these systems, always and without fail, come with government and police overreach and then the "guilty unless proven innocent" paradigm creeps in, which we have already seen happen with flock. You have police using the technology to spy on their lovers and friends of their wives and husbands, and you have political campaigns finding ways to spy on their opponents, and activists getting special attention from prosecutors, etc. Which always happs, but with totalitarianism is an absolute train wreck for an open, fair, and power-balanced government.
I would totally agree with you if I trusted the government
Yeah - this is the important part. With a truly benevolent government I think this may in fact be the best option...
But not only do you have to trust the government now (and you likely should not), you also need to trust the government far into the future (which you absolutely cannot do) because the tools will still exist.
Don't accept tools that are also strong weapons for oppression.
OP made the mistake and included ALPRs in their list IMO. Because I'm having a hard time imagining how a sensor triggered red light camera could be used for oppression.
Have them take pictures of every car, now you've got half of what flock offers.
It's the widespread remote camera installs that are the main problem there. If they kept data locally and had to be collected by hand, it might be fine - that's difficult enough to grow to monitor everyone all the time. Aside from using film though, I'm not sure how that would be achieved.
(To be clear, I really do think we should be prosecuting speeding (and tailgating) MUCH more than we do. Far more death and damage occurs from it than we should allow. But ubiquitous networked cameras are not the way we should do that.)