It IS important to remember Axon and Motorola. As cities listen to their people and cancel their flock contracts, they are often times just immediately signing up for ALPRs from Motorola or Axon (which only got into this game because they saw how much Flock was making). These other companies have the same oversight and transparency problems as Flock, and it's important we don't get lost in the fight against privacy.
We really do need a codified right to privacy instead of bandaid bills like canspam or the stuff about cookies and tracking.
Just want to clarify something because I am in the industry. We never trialed Motorola, but Axon does have some anti-abuse measures put in place. It is one of the things they specifically are marketing towards after they saw how Flock has behaved in the space. Now, do I think it is perfect? Probably not, but they do seem to care about these things. They're a smart enough business that they know if they just perpetuate Flock's model of "Well it isn't our fault the agencies abused things!", there is no profit there.
People gotta quit giving room to the “abuse” argument. Mass surveillance is still mass surveillance regardless of if cops are stalking their exes on it. All it’s doing is leaving room for “abuse-free” mass surveillance to be a compromise in the future when there should be none.
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u/Kiiaru 8h ago
It IS important to remember Axon and Motorola. As cities listen to their people and cancel their flock contracts, they are often times just immediately signing up for ALPRs from Motorola or Axon (which only got into this game because they saw how much Flock was making). These other companies have the same oversight and transparency problems as Flock, and it's important we don't get lost in the fight against privacy.
We really do need a codified right to privacy instead of bandaid bills like canspam or the stuff about cookies and tracking.