Making Tech Headlines · Page 7
Towns Ask Flock Cameras to Leave After the Questions Arrive
· New York time
At least 10 local governments have moved to drop Flock surveillance cameras since summer, according to TechCrunch. The concerns include privacy, how data is shared and with whom, and procurement questions about how the systems were purchased. The decisions put local officials in the position of weighing the convenience of surveillance technology against the rules governing its use. A camera is easy to picture: it is the object attached to a pole. The data it collects and the arrangements for sharing it are less visible, which makes them natural subjects for residents and officials to examine. Procurement adds another layer, because a community may want to know not only what a system does but how it was approved in the first place. The reporting does not say every government acted for the same reason, or that all residents opposed the cameras. It describes a series of local moves driven by a range of concerns. The comic reversal is that equipment meant to observe a community has drawn intense attention to the people who bought and administer it. A device can record a street without explaining its contract, its access rules or its data-sharing arrangements. Those details still need a public conversation, however unenthusiastic the hardware may be about attending a meeting.
Read this story in the full newspaper →Satire. Not factual reporting. Read the original reporting from the linked publishers.