Flock Safety license plate readers generated over 210,000 stolen vehicle alerts in Oakland during a six-month period

@ArmandDoma It’s not like Oakland is going to prosecute property crime anyway.

@kane Alert doesn't mean unique stolen vehicles

It's probably more like 10k cars seen more than once each

Obviously prison

@ArmandDoma flock sucks. they exposed an api which let random ppl control their cameras and let creeps stalk kids on a playground. their founder has a bigger god complex than elon.

i wouldn’t care if PDs built their own system but flock is shady.

Someone seeing your plate in public ≠ a national searchable database where potentially any of 4,500 agencies can query ‘white pickup, roof rack, bumper sticker’ across every chokepoint in town for 30 days. Texas already used Flock to hunt a woman over an abortion. The ‘it’s public anyway’ framing is doing a lot of work

@BDBSoCal they are doing it!

There are two factors that weigh in here:

1/ they way under-use it for legit crime-solving 2/ they way over-use it for more unsavory purposes

I assume some jurisdictions are actually using it to truly find the stolen vehicles, catch the bad guys: good. This will turn the issue for many.

But those that just put stolen-car alerts on mute (or do not mute the erroneous ones that get the same innocent person pulled over 3x/week) are not helping themselves.

@ArmandDoma Well that’s not at all what we have against flock cameras, but nice try.

@ArmandDoma In Portland the issue has been (a) that more cameras will be located in places with more crime, and (b) that data may be provided to the Feds for ICE-related purposes. A is silly, but B is a legit concern.

@kane I'm just not sure alerts per capita is meaningful

If they doubled the number of cameras that's twice the detection opportunities and twice the alerts without any increase in actual crime

@kane No, it's multiple cameras hitting the same cars. But Oakland is an urban decay shithole with a ton of crime. I work next to Oakland and would never spend any leisure time there.

@kane There’s no way this data is accurate. I agree it’s high but this is another level

@ArmandDoma It’s not the privacy thing. People just don’t want speeding tickets or getting dinged for cutting a yellow light too close or making a right on red or being a month late on registration. They should have the cameras but set them to only trigger for like 2X the speed limit.

First, Texas did not use Flock to hunt a woman over an abortion. She was reported missing, and the only lead her parents gave was related to an abortion. Those are very different things.

Secondly, only agencies that opt to share their data with other agencies, which is per their local and community-driven policy, are searchable in the database. That database is particularly helpful when a child, for example, is abducted through statelines. Or when a murderer is found a few counties over.

@kane Wait, how many alerts does a single car generate?

@ArmandDoma It's sort of funny that they contextualize the number by saying the "OPD called it astronomical". Seems like they could have let the reader decide for themselves

@kane If you think this indicates that every person in Oakland gets their car stolen from them per year idk what to tell you.

It’s clearly measuring something different.

@kane

@kane "Crime is down"

@ArmandDoma I guess you’ve never had your violent ex-boyfriend cop stalk you for two years