As a former city councilman of a community that installed six flock cameras I can say that the connection with law enforcement and the cameras capabilities and uses is obfuscated.
They are advertised as locally owned and data locally controlled. However when asked what the data can be used for was not given a direct answer.
I asked since the public purchased these cameras can we use the data to determine how many people attended a festival or other city event.
Not any identifiable information just general like how many people traveled to our community to attend the 4th of July fireworks show or local outdoor concert night.
Silence. Nope as the city we cannot access or use any of the data and instead trust that these will be used for law enforcement and safety.
Upon questioning how they would be used and who would be accessing the data found the answers to be quite generalized.
My two cents is if we are going to have flock cameras or not … law enforcement and the company need to be more transparent on what data is stored, how it is accessed, who can access, how it links to other cameras in other communities, how is misuse identified, what access do federal agencies have to this data (do they have to ask the local community first or can they just login with some super user account and pull data etc)
I get the sense that if Flock were to be transparent about how these truly function less communities would be willing to purchase .. but I could be wrong.
They are advertised as locally owned and data locally controlled. However when asked what the data can be used for was not given a direct answer.
I asked since the public purchased these cameras can we use the data to determine how many people attended a festival or other city event.
Not any identifiable information just general like how many people traveled to our community to attend the 4th of July fireworks show or local outdoor concert night.
Silence. Nope as the city we cannot access or use any of the data and instead trust that these will be used for law enforcement and safety.
Upon questioning how they would be used and who would be accessing the data found the answers to be quite generalized.
My two cents is if we are going to have flock cameras or not … law enforcement and the company need to be more transparent on what data is stored, how it is accessed, who can access, how it links to other cameras in other communities, how is misuse identified, what access do federal agencies have to this data (do they have to ask the local community first or can they just login with some super user account and pull data etc)
I get the sense that if Flock were to be transparent about how these truly function less communities would be willing to purchase .. but I could be wrong.