ValK2 (Tennessee)
Posts: 65
Posts: 65
Posted:
Out community of 100 homes has had our own "security" cameras for several years. Over time no one has really maintained/upgraded them, and the overall clarity could be better.
A couple of our residents got together with Flock (a cloud-based license plate reader company) and are now advocating that we strike a deal with them to install their cameras at our only entryway. I should also note that our community is surrounded by a river on three sides (basically, we are a peninsula) with many homeowners having elaborate docks. Access can easily be gained to the community by simply pulling a boat up to the shore at probably 50% of the community.
In the last decade we have had two reported "crime" events. One was a nighttime spree of robberies where people came ashore at an unknown location and broke into cars and stole just about anything they could cart away. Mostly they got guns and money. The other event was the theft of a John Deere Gator which was carried of at night and for which our security cameras have no footage (they go down occasionally or people put something over the cameras which are easily accessible) and nobody "knows nuttin" and the crime was never solved,
Now comes an effort to have us purchase Flock camera. The argument to vote yes is mostly subjective: What if a child is molested; what if a car is stolen; what it packages are taken from porches; that sort of rhetoric. We really have no community crime date on which to rely, and the stuff that the local sheriff added during the Zoom call was of no help: ATMs robbed; construction equipment stolen; drug rings broken up. Not community sort of stuff.
So, what are people doing in other communities? Does anyone use flock? Is there a reasonable argument to be made for installing their cameras? What about privacy--they have or will have facial recognition stuff, and in today's world, what if ICE wants the data? Mostly the persuasive argument is proactive--if people know we have good cameras, they won't commit crime in our neighborhood. If we have signs, that will deter criminal behavior. It's really a "soft" protection rather than having our data linked with law enforcement (Flock says it takes 20 seconds to have our data referred to their system if we opt for that). Is the psychological comfort of knowing we are protected worth the expense?
The idea of someone knowing my comings and goings gives me the creeps, but the reality is that our town has cameras, the bank knows what i do, the CC Company see my every purchase; the computer company follows me; the TV/Social media companies know more about me than i know about myself. So what if another agency (the police or Flock) know when I come and go. Is it really that much of an issue?
What is your experience with Flock, or other commercial camera companies which "watch" over your community with license plate readers (and oh, by the way, the camera catches your whole car, so it's not just the numbers on your plate)?
A couple of our residents got together with Flock (a cloud-based license plate reader company) and are now advocating that we strike a deal with them to install their cameras at our only entryway. I should also note that our community is surrounded by a river on three sides (basically, we are a peninsula) with many homeowners having elaborate docks. Access can easily be gained to the community by simply pulling a boat up to the shore at probably 50% of the community.
In the last decade we have had two reported "crime" events. One was a nighttime spree of robberies where people came ashore at an unknown location and broke into cars and stole just about anything they could cart away. Mostly they got guns and money. The other event was the theft of a John Deere Gator which was carried of at night and for which our security cameras have no footage (they go down occasionally or people put something over the cameras which are easily accessible) and nobody "knows nuttin" and the crime was never solved,
Now comes an effort to have us purchase Flock camera. The argument to vote yes is mostly subjective: What if a child is molested; what if a car is stolen; what it packages are taken from porches; that sort of rhetoric. We really have no community crime date on which to rely, and the stuff that the local sheriff added during the Zoom call was of no help: ATMs robbed; construction equipment stolen; drug rings broken up. Not community sort of stuff.
So, what are people doing in other communities? Does anyone use flock? Is there a reasonable argument to be made for installing their cameras? What about privacy--they have or will have facial recognition stuff, and in today's world, what if ICE wants the data? Mostly the persuasive argument is proactive--if people know we have good cameras, they won't commit crime in our neighborhood. If we have signs, that will deter criminal behavior. It's really a "soft" protection rather than having our data linked with law enforcement (Flock says it takes 20 seconds to have our data referred to their system if we opt for that). Is the psychological comfort of knowing we are protected worth the expense?
The idea of someone knowing my comings and goings gives me the creeps, but the reality is that our town has cameras, the bank knows what i do, the CC Company see my every purchase; the computer company follows me; the TV/Social media companies know more about me than i know about myself. So what if another agency (the police or Flock) know when I come and go. Is it really that much of an issue?
What is your experience with Flock, or other commercial camera companies which "watch" over your community with license plate readers (and oh, by the way, the camera catches your whole car, so it's not just the numbers on your plate)?