[Manuel_D]

Recording people in public spaces is generally legal. Should it be unlawful to record your front porch? That'd implicate Ring and a whole bunch of other products. How about setting up a camera on your windowsill pointing out towards the street?

[pessimizer]

None of this stuff is settled. It's always in court, and audio and video are frequently treated completely differently from each other.

What about setting up a camera on your roof aimed at your neighbor's bedroom window, and livestreaming it online? What about secretly recording the conversation that you're having with someone in a restaurant? What about recording the comings and goings of the people who enter or leave a gay bar, or a mosque?

[tkems]

One issue I have with the Flock cameras installed in my city is that they are installed on public land (right next to the road) and paid for with tax dollars.

[ApolloFortyNine]

The way government pricing usually goes, going private is likely saving 90% over what it would cost to implement this by some government agency.

The million (almost 2 million) dollar toilet comes to mind.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/us/san-francisco-toilet.h...

[RyanHamilton]

"going private is likely saving 90% over". How's that working out for your private US healthcare system? Some of the most expensive private care in the world. The toilet you mention is in one of the richest most capitilistic states in the world, they have super expensive public toilets alongside homelessness. In other countries they have cheap public toilets. I'm not sure public/private is the deciding factor. I think it's San Francisco.

[renewiltord]

My biggest problem with the road itself is that it's installed on public land and paid for with tax dollars.

[signatoremo]

It’s used by the governments, how can they pay for it if not with tax money? Would you be happier if Flock installed them for free in exchange for advertising space in town?

[geodel]

Agree.

Its even worse in some places. I see schools, colleges, libraries are getting installed on public land. I mean where are we gonna end up with this.

[ang_cire]

Imagine ranking surveillance equipment right up there in importance-to-society with schools and libraries...

[Teever]

People are going to start making spray paint/foam attachments for drones so that they can equip their drone with a little can of 'fuck that camera right up'

it won't be cost effective to repair the cameras, so they'll go away.

[geodel]

Yeah, people have always fucked with technology and in each case people win and technology gets abandoned.

[Teever]

No, what I think will happen then is that the govt will transition to flying cameras, but the problem with that will be expense and poorer performance for a while until batteries improve.

[toomuchtodo]

That's what laws are for, for us to decide if actions that are technically possible should be legally possible. Many products exist because of leaks in existing laws around privacy; maybe we tighten those laws up? That's the point of the discussion. In this case, a private company is creating a dystopian dragnet of personal travel information that is a function of the population travel volume that its devices cover.

If the right to privacy arrived at from this discussion kills a product line or a business, oh well. Human rights > profits, broadly speaking.

"Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

[jorvi]

That last one is illegal, it just isn’t enforced by the police because they benefit from it.

It’s the difference between recording and monitoring. You’re allowed to record in a public space, but you’re not allowed to monitor it.

[infecto]

Is this not highly dependent on your location? In the US this is up to the state/county level. It is generally not illegal to film past your property line.

[jorvi]

> It is generally not illegal to film past your property line.

In the US. In much of the world it is.

But again, enforcement of this is terribly weak. It is virtually impossible to verify, and even if the government somehow did, it is trivial to circumvent as you just have to tilt the camera a few degrees or slightly change the block-out zones on the camera, and you can't really see the difference from the outside. On top of the police having a vested interest in the breaking of this rule because it helps them tremendously during investigations.

[infecto]

But the article is about the US. So your original statement is not quite accurate?

[BobaFloutist]

Yeah, it should probably be generally illegal to record past your property line.

[Manuel_D]

So a ring camera recording the sidewalk in front of your house should be illegal?

[ang_cire]

Yes, why do you want to record people who aren't on your property?

[_chu1]

Yes.

[BobaFloutist]

Yeah, absolutely.