As long as the cameras are confined to public streets and roadways, where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy, I don't really see the problem with police gathering this data, even for a libertarian. A lone, human officer could observe the same public visual stimuli and look up license plate numbers or car descriptions, perhaps even record his findings in a notebook, and he would have the right to direct his own eyes and brain and hand to do so. With Flock, police are doing the same, just more efficiently. If someone has the right to do something, surely they also have the right to do it efficiently. Otherwise what is the limiting principle?
You say that it's not illegal for the police to surveil people in public as part of "regular law enforcement," but is it really regular law enforcement to passively surveil literally everyone and store that data in a database?
One decent litmus test for privacy overreach is, "could a bad actor/agency within the government super easily exploit this for political reasons?" The answer for Flock seems to be "undoubtedly." An authoritarian federal government could gain access to Flock databases either by requesting access to local PDs or maybe by some statutory authority. Then, they could target a political opponent by using the data in some way to construct a narrative about malicious activity to further a court case. Obviously a very hypothetical scenario, but it's a demonstration of another point on the slippery slope that we've been on since FISA -> EO 12333 -> Patriot act -> 2008 FISA amendments.
My biggest problem with Flock isn't even the fact that they're surveiling everyone. My main problem with it is that it's a single private company that has organized such a large scope of data that the risks associated with cyberattacks is huge. All it would take is one data breach to expose everyone's movement patterns for all sorts of potential targeting. Another aspect of the private company thing is that any data safeguards or protections that are in place by their terms/policies could just change. If the government is going to do the surveillance, the government should do the surveillance and establish legal boundaries that prevent them from, for example, changing the data logging from "store for 30 days" to "store indefinitely."
I do want to note that I'm not 100% convinced on being anti-Flock. I'm not rabidly anti-Flock mostly because I have always felt that as someone who tries to be an upstanding citizen I don't have much to worry about in terms of data collection and surveillance (in the right hands). But the concerns I listed above are valid, which is why I can relate better to those who are on the more critical end of the spectrum than those who are too quick to dismiss the potential risks.
As long as the cameras are confined to public streets and roadways, where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy, I don't really see the problem with police gathering this data, even for a libertarian. A lone, human officer could observe the same public visual stimuli and look up license plate numbers or car descriptions, perhaps even record his findings in a notebook, and he would have the right to direct his own eyes and brain and hand to do so. With Flock, police are doing the same, just more efficiently. If someone has the right to do something, surely they also have the right to do it efficiently. Otherwise what is the limiting principle?
You say that it's not illegal for the police to surveil people in public as part of "regular law enforcement," but is it really regular law enforcement to passively surveil literally everyone and store that data in a database?
One decent litmus test for privacy overreach is, "could a bad actor/agency within the government super easily exploit this for political reasons?" The answer for Flock seems to be "undoubtedly." An authoritarian federal government could gain access to Flock databases either by requesting access to local PDs or maybe by some statutory authority. Then, they could target a political opponent by using the data in some way to construct a narrative about malicious activity to further a court case. Obviously a very hypothetical scenario, but it's a demonstration of another point on the slippery slope that we've been on since FISA -> EO 12333 -> Patriot act -> 2008 FISA amendments.
My biggest problem with Flock isn't even the fact that they're surveiling everyone. My main problem with it is that it's a single private company that has organized such a large scope of data that the risks associated with cyberattacks is huge. All it would take is one data breach to expose everyone's movement patterns for all sorts of potential targeting. Another aspect of the private company thing is that any data safeguards or protections that are in place by their terms/policies could just change. If the government is going to do the surveillance, the government should do the surveillance and establish legal boundaries that prevent them from, for example, changing the data logging from "store for 30 days" to "store indefinitely."
I do want to note that I'm not 100% convinced on being anti-Flock. I'm not rabidly anti-Flock mostly because I have always felt that as someone who tries to be an upstanding citizen I don't have much to worry about in terms of data collection and surveillance (in the right hands). But the concerns I listed above are valid, which is why I can relate better to those who are on the more critical end of the spectrum than those who are too quick to dismiss the potential risks.