Flock is Secretly Building a Powerful New Prompt-Based AI Tool for Police (wired.com) 55
Slashdot reader fjo3 shared this article from Wired:
[Flock] has told the public for years that its technology "cannot recognize, identify, or track individuals." It has now built a system that does both, an artificial intelligence tool for police that can identify drivers and track vehicles by their patterns of movement alone, WIRED has learned... Because the system also reaches police case files, 911 dispatch logs, and commercial identity records, those plates can be turned into names, home addresses, and relatives. It can search for people in an area drawn on a map based on nothing more than a physical description...
The code describes 45 tools at the AI's disposal, giving it access to plate scans and camera metadata, arrest records, case files, dispatch logs, ballistics results, and commercial databases that contain Social Security numbers, dates of birth, phone numbers, email addresses, relatives and associates. Flock says it is testing the product with a small group of law enforcement partners and describes it as still in development, with capabilities that may not reflect what it eventually sells. It arrives as the company faces bipartisan political pressure, a growing record of officers caught misusing its platform, and a wave of vandalism that has left cameras sawed off and lenses painted over in cities across the country...
An officer no longer needs a plate, a name, or a crime to begin: They supply a place, a stretch of time, and a pattern of behavior, and the system is designed to hand back the people who fit... One prompt Flock preloaded into the system reads: "Find me witnesses based on vehicles most seen in [neighborhood] during [last 14 days] during [daily timeframe] *(will not include whitelisted vehicles)." An officer would fill in the blanks and submit it. The output is a list of plates, which other tools in the product then convert into names and home addresses. Another prompt instructs the system to list everyone arrested more than twice in two years for "any offense," exempting only narcotics arrests, and then says to map where those people live, retrieve the calls for service at their homes, and "do a workup on the top three individuals." The prompt begins with everyone in the area who has an arrest record and ends with dossiers on three of them, chosen by the software. A "workup," in Flock's terminology, is a one-command background check. It starts with a name and a date of birth and returns what the department's records and commercial data hold: vehicles, prior listings as a suspect, and, on a second screen, relatives, phone numbers, and online accounts.
Wired shares this reaction from a law professor at George Washington University.
"It is clear Flock has aspirations far beyond ALPRs to become a digital platform for policing,"
The code describes 45 tools at the AI's disposal, giving it access to plate scans and camera metadata, arrest records, case files, dispatch logs, ballistics results, and commercial databases that contain Social Security numbers, dates of birth, phone numbers, email addresses, relatives and associates. Flock says it is testing the product with a small group of law enforcement partners and describes it as still in development, with capabilities that may not reflect what it eventually sells. It arrives as the company faces bipartisan political pressure, a growing record of officers caught misusing its platform, and a wave of vandalism that has left cameras sawed off and lenses painted over in cities across the country...
An officer no longer needs a plate, a name, or a crime to begin: They supply a place, a stretch of time, and a pattern of behavior, and the system is designed to hand back the people who fit... One prompt Flock preloaded into the system reads: "Find me witnesses based on vehicles most seen in [neighborhood] during [last 14 days] during [daily timeframe] *(will not include whitelisted vehicles)." An officer would fill in the blanks and submit it. The output is a list of plates, which other tools in the product then convert into names and home addresses. Another prompt instructs the system to list everyone arrested more than twice in two years for "any offense," exempting only narcotics arrests, and then says to map where those people live, retrieve the calls for service at their homes, and "do a workup on the top three individuals." The prompt begins with everyone in the area who has an arrest record and ends with dossiers on three of them, chosen by the software. A "workup," in Flock's terminology, is a one-command background check. It starts with a name and a date of birth and returns what the department's records and commercial data hold: vehicles, prior listings as a suspect, and, on a second screen, relatives, phone numbers, and online accounts.
Wired shares this reaction from a law professor at George Washington University.
"It is clear Flock has aspirations far beyond ALPRs to become a digital platform for policing,"
Flock = fallible metadata that lives forever (Score:3)
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They're (mis)classifying people, cars, objects, and more for perpetual use..
Got it.
Mondays, I'm Spiderman. Coordinated with the other 400 million Spidermans in the world.
Tuesdays, I'm Batman. Coordinated with the other 300 million Batmans in the world.
Wednesday is Yoda day. May the Farce be with Us. Always.
(Thursdays? I'm just myself. Flocking thing goes apeshit over that.)
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Flock needs to be destroyed (Score:3)
Re:Flock needs to be destroyed (Score:4, Insightful)
The keys are to make them politically radioactive, demand their removal through civil-political means, and exhaust their profits (as you say) legally and so forth (IDK, maybe CPP-protected hardware can be identified?)
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Some cities have already suspended their contract's with Flock. Other's have deactivated the cameras. More will follow. This is actually a topic that could unify the people against this bullshit as it universally affects everyone. From Idaho to California, people have been destroying these things.
This is actually one area where we might actually push back. It won't change the Amazon Ring debacle but at least we can pushback on Flock-like bullshit.
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Re: Anthony, I think the constitutional right to a fair trial should have been respected. That the numerous clear violations of process require a ruling of mistrial, removal of the prior judge, and a retrial.
That's not a "left" thing, that's a CONSTITUTIONAL thing. Don't you claim you love the Constitution? OH RIGHT... YOU RETARDICAN KLANWHOREFUCKS burn crosses because you're Constitution-hating Shit-eating Trailer Trash Klan Inbreds.
Re: Clancy, insane people may be supporting her and making wild claim
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Clean out that tired, formulaic, disinformation rhetoric and get some new talking points that aren't 30 years old.
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Here in the People's Republic of California, some cities explicitly don't use it, but the single-party politburo at the top adores it.
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Flock has also been busted "deactivating" cameras when they keep using them for themselves without an active contract. They must be actively taken-down or destroyed.
Note: Home Depot, et. al. corporations use them in their parking lots and were early adopters and have them regardless of municipal decisions.
Re:Flock needs to be destroyed (Score:5, Insightful)
Some cities have already suspended their contract's with Flock. Other's have deactivated the cameras.
Note that these two things are not the same. Cancelling a contract does not necessarily remove or deactivate a camera.
The cameras were installed as part of the contract with the municipality (city. state, county, fed, etc.) but are owned and operated by Flock. The cancellation of the contract just means ending the payments for access to the Flock system. It would take further action to order the removal/deactivation of the cameras. Flock is still watching, and other police forces can still use the data they are collecting.
If your municipality says it is "cancelling its contract with Flock", make sure they are actually removing the cameras, not just agreeing to stop subscribing to the Flock system.
The devil is in the details.
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The keys are to make them politically radioactive, demand their removal through civil-political means, and exhaust their profits (as you say) legally and so forth (IDK, maybe CPP-protected hardware can be identified?)
Under the current US regime? Oh, you sweet summer child!
Re: Flock needs to be destroyed (Score:2)
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AI is making people believe half-assed, half-baked metadata is gospel. Their data is shit, and the worse it is, the shittier it is. So-called "ALPRs" make it worse. But even CCTV security camera AI is terrible and way over-sold, ask casino guy. [allaboutlawyer.com]
Re: Flock needs to be destroyed (Score:2)
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Re: Flock needs to be destroyed (Score:2)
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Flock can save lives. Strongly regulate its use and severely punish its abuse, don't destroy it. A large number of violent crimes can be solved with it. Right now in the USA only about 50% of murders get solved. Scotland has a 100% homicide solve rate. Scotland's cities and towns utilize broad CCTV networks in public squares, transport hubs, and high-traffic streets and they use live facial recognition. We don't need to be Scotland, but if we have total surveillance we would be able to solve well over 90% o
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No this is minority report on steroids, police cannot be trusted with this.
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That means they solve every murder. If a person kills someone in Scotland, they're getting caught. Guaranteed.
NOPE. Based on Scotland police's definition, they consider a case closed or solved when they identify someone they think was responsible, and that person's name is forwarded on for prosecution. The conviction rate is not 100%, more like 70-80% (https://www.theferret.scot/murders-2013-solved-police-scotland/). AND, their murder numbers may not include deaths that the police cannot determine were murders. For example, a drug overdose could be accidental or could be murder, and pressure to classify it as accid
Short-sighted and useless, like wiping out Napster (Score:2)
Killing Flock won't kill the concept or the capability and more than demolishing Napster stopped music copying. I bet within 5 years, this scanning will be common in most dashcams and phone apps will be available.
Lashing out in anger without having a plan or knowing your target is juvenile.
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Not if you and I start cancelling politicians, especially local ones
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You miss the point completely. The technology is there and unstoppable. Cutting down one company doesn't destroy the technology. Killing Napster didn't kill the technology, it just spread it around, decentralized it, then there were thousands of sites to control, and they never did manage to do that, did they? Killing Flock will do exactly the same.
"Policing" Is Doing a Lof of Heavy Lifting Here (Score:5, Insightful)
They misspelled, "Orwellian suveillance and harrassment."
Law enforcement officers are already abusing Flock's existing capabilities for stalking [cybernews.com]. This will not improve matters one iota.
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Re: "Policing" Is Doing a Lof of Heavy Lifting Her (Score:2)
The Torment Nexus makes $ (Score:2)
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– Baron Klim, "The Music of the Spheres"
Im sure this wont be abused in any way. (Score:2)
will not include whitelisted vehicles (Score:2)
1984 as an instruction manual (Score:2)
For too many years now, 1984 has been used like an instruction manual and it is done so bipartisan.
Passive Aggressive option (Score:2)
Would a custom license plate frame ringed with high intensity infrared LED's obfuscate your plate from Flock ?
( Or at least make your plate unreadable )
It would only impact camera systems that can see into the infrared spectrum. It wouldn't impact human
visibility to said plate at all.
Wouldn't be all that difficult to build with some basic electronics theory, some tools and / or 3d printer.
But, I have no idea if the Flock cameras see into the infrared spectrum or not.
Is just a passing thought.