1. We shouldn't have to wait for regulation to accept this. It should be locked down before going live. It's reasonable for people to want it gone until it's thoughtfully and *transparently* rolled out.
2. I agree that there are legitimate use cases and I still don't want it to exist. I do not trust our government or police force to use this properly, as demonstrated by the abuse that has already happened.
Currently there is a US Green Card holder—a legal permanent resident—who is facing deportation for protesting Palestine apartheid. Not for supporting Hamas, not for called for terrorism, not for attacking anyone. Simply for protesting their homeland being occupied and bombed.
This government is not trustworthy. Police can't be trusted with this ability. There are trade-offs for not having it, fine, but there are trade-offs for having it. The erosion of privacy and liberty is too costly.
Regarding number one, that seems like a common frustration, but one I don't understand.
How would something be regulated without doing the work of actually passing the regulation?
In order to have the laws we want, we have to create them. It takes work and it would be nice if we didn't have to do it, but that seems like yelling at the clouds.
> How would something be regulated without doing the work of actually passing the regulation
I think the point GP was making is that the cameras should not be deployed until the legal regulations around how the data is used and such is hashed out
Instead what is happening with many of these projects is a "move fast and break things" attitude. Cameras being deployed before the regulatory environment can catch up, leading to the busted situation we have now where people are lashing out and cutting cameras down
If there was any due diligence upfront with regulating this before the cameras were installed, then maybe we wouldn't be here
Who's responsible for doing the diligence up front? Who's responsible for doing it now?
This isn't a new topic.
Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) have been in use and legal since the 90s.
Facial recognition scanners have been in use in public spaces and legal since the early 2000s.
How long should one wait for regulations to catch up?
At least to me, this seems like a situation where public sentiment rapidly shifted, and now people are much more angry about the legal status that they were either okay or ignorant of a one or two years ago.
It doesn't really strike me as a move fast and break things situation. Flock itself is 10 years old at this point.
Situations change, and people can absolutely change their mind about the technology, for example if they don't trust the current Administration. That said, it seems like there's a lot of revisionist history and FUD going around.
There's a lot of people that have been having their face scanned every time they go to a concert or get on a plane who who are up and arms. People have been using a license plate readers to pay their toll on the way to work everyday are suddenly advocating for cutting down cameras.
Technically, most people came at it with no strong perspective. The pushback developed when it became undeniably clear the the devices were being abused, and there was no accountability. In particular, Flocks CEO has handled this extremely poorly.
I’m all for the positive use cases, and have been involved with several similar products, but in this case Flock has completely mishandled the situation and created the situation they now find themselves in.
This is a clueless take, tbh. There is no regulation that can stop these being misused at scale to violate people's rights. None. It's the same with FAA702.
