[reaperducer]

On one hand I understand that they have the capability of incredibly enhancing the ability for police departments to solve more crimes.

Do they?

There are millions of these cameras all around the country, yet when pressed about their value, Flock and cops can only point to one or two crimes prevented/solved at a time. And they're usually things like "caught a burglar after the fact," or "stopped someone from dumpster diving."

Get back to me when they find Samantha Guthrie.

[Fogest]

I've already watched many dozens of bodycam videos on YouTube where the Flock cameras we used to help track down suspects of crime, so I feel like this may just be a case of you being ignorant on the topic. You can argue on the other merits of such a system, but I think you're being a bit silly making an argument that these don't help solve crime.

[reaperducer]

dozens of bodycam videos on YouTube where the Flock cameras we used to help track down suspects of crime

In my country (United States of America), tracking down a suspect isn't the same as solving or preventing a crime. Suspects aren't criminals until found to be so in a court of law, not in the court of social media.

That you think modern surveillance tech keeps people safe because you watch dozens of social media videos doesn't mean that people are safe, it means you got sucked into the advertising.

[stickfigure]

I share the parent's internal conflict, but this is an interesting critique that I hadn't considered: The cameras don't actually work. Do we have any data on that? Seems like I hear about stolen cars (and their drivers) getting picked up fairly frequently due to these cameras. Is it marketing or is it true?

[Fogest]

I think they are just being intentionally ignorant on the topic due to their dislike of the system overall and I don't think that is fair of them. There is lots of videos even of YouTube via bodycam videos with many police departments making good use of these cameras to aid in solving crimes. I'm sure there are many articles and maybe even research out there which would show this.

I think it's just a way to try and dismiss the cameras without trying to tackle the heart of the problem. When you have to contend with the fact that the cameras have a lot of useful purposes, it makes arguing against them much more challenging. If you can pretend they are not useful, it may be a way to try to stiffle any productive discussion around them.

[glaslong]

I'm skeptical as well. Was recently on a jury for a murder case of all things, and while they had a ton of footage from traffic cameras across 3 separate towns, MOST of the evidence that was really damning was a combo of prints at the scene and location data from cell providers and phone extraction.

[rootusrootus]

> Get back to me when they find Samantha Guthrie.

Nancy?

[reaperducer]

Probably. I don't follow it. All I know is that a high-profile person's mom got kidnapped and in spite of all the billions of dollars spent on surveillance technology in this country, she's vanished into thin air.

[rootusrootus]

As I recall, she lived in a rural neighborhood of the catalina foothills where houses are far apart and set back from the trees, so the surveillance coverage even from Ring cameras was really sparse. In a regular suburban neighborhood or urban area there would probably have been a half dozen recordings of anyone coming or going to her house.

[Permit]

Doesn’t that mean we have an insufficient number of cameras?

[bombcar]

Or an insufficient number of AirTags installed in Grandma.