@404.media: Last summer, a cop with the Lake County, Indiana Sheriff’s Department used Flock’s surveillance search engine to look for a license plate across more than 19,000 cameras in 1,558 cities and towns. The cop’s stated reason for the search, according to a record of Flock’s system, was “LMAO.” The cop is one of dozens who put gibberish, jokes, or other nonsense into Flock’s “reason” box, highlighting the casualness and lack of care some cops have when searching an incredibly powerful surveillance system. This is on top of the thousands upon thousands of cops who simply wrote something like “investigation,” “test,” or left the box blank as their search “reason,” according to a new analysis by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and shared with 404 Media. The EFF contacted departments whose cops performed these “joke” searches, and found that many of them did not do anything about cops who button mashed or put jokes. @Jason Koebler reports. Link in bio to read now.

What The Film?! :

We gotta stop just sayin Flock. We are letting Axon off the hook. And any others that may pop up.

crackerchips :

at any job you would be flagged and fired for misuse of tech.. I dont get it

Rachel 🍁 :

I guess "stalking my ex gf" would be awkward to write

Not a Firefighter :

"stalking my ex" probably takes up too many characters in the reason box

seejonesywalk :

wait so there's enough regulation to have an established statute of limitations for investigating abuses of this system, but no regulation on requiring probable cause to access it in the first place?

david :

All of those cops should be fired for improper usage

gribble :

idk, my BFF jill? (Jill will never escape my grasp)

L6 :

ugh. I'm already upset at this and I didn't think it could get worse.

ForeverDecember :

In healthcare is something is deemed “sensitive” for say a patient board, we have established codes words. Sounds like PD needs to establish protocols for these sorts of things.

Timer Rose :

it's all over, folks

Unionize Iowa :

all cats are beautiful

Action Toons :

we're doomed

libraryofalexistrata :

Can we see the full list on the EFF website?

Arvottu :

at some point they will try to remove the reason requirement again, it's difficult enough for people to care

hugh jass :

How should I word a request to my city asking for these logs

JuiceBox03 :

damn.

socialistdreamboat :

Lmao

DemSocio :

I’ve been ip attacked by Oracle for posting a comment about how to change your address so the US never knows where you live…it’s easy if you think about it. Think short term room rentals…

Deano :

They do this shit (and worse) then wonder why people dislike/don’t trust them.

Crazy Guy :

After years, decades, of never addressing the public concern over how these institutions abuse the power they already have, to violate people’s rights and privacy, they want to give them EVEN MORE power to undermine our privacy in unprecedented ways

VibingGhost :

It doesn't take much for flock to implement a dictionary based filtering system either. It'll take a dev team all of 1-2 weeks to ensure every search matches the title of a broad crime, at the very least. Flock is simply encouraging this behavior.

savascha :

The whole system is antisocial

peregrine65 :

deez ⛳️ putts :

Flock will just put a drop-down menu of legitimate reasons in there now. Pick one, any one!

trungulusmungulus :

We’re paying big toddlers to ruin our lives. Come on people let’s do something