>But cops have been tracked down and killed by people using apps like Waze so it's not a completely unwarranted fear.
Sure, but you haven't made the case for why the fear is anyone else's problem. If a person is too scared to be a cop there's an easy fix: stop being a cop. Unfortunately, regular citizens who can't afford to up and move to a country that has civil rights (that is, most of them) don't have the same recourse.
> cops have been tracked down and killed by people using apps like Waze
They 100% have not actually been tracked down and killed by people using apps like Waze
I think your critique of police here is orthogonal to the privacy discussion, which affects everyone:
Imagine the danger and legitimate fear a stalking victim would face if there was a public real-time tracker for any license plate query you can imagine.
What if there was a book that listed everyone's phone numbers?
What if it also listed everyone's address and their full history of travel on all roads, ever, with a queryable interface?
So, like, cops are currently doing?
Imagine the danger and legitimate fear a stalking victim would face if their stalker is a police officer with access to Flock.
A lot of this boils down to ‘we have bad police’.
I am no fan of Flock but there is more than one problem here.
A few rotten apples do spoil the whole bunch.