A lot of those are going to be the same people day in and day out, the article says 500k faces, not people. You also have to filter out those people where the cameras aren't getting an image good enough to scan.
The article doesn't say, and I haven't seen the cameras, but it's not like you're getting every single person parsing through those stations.
BTP say [0] that "the images and biometric data of those who don’t cause an alert are automatically and immediately deleted." - if that's true, they shouldn't be able to tell that it's the same faces being scanned multiple times so it has to be 500k total scans rather than, say, 500k unique faces across 2 million scans
I was thinking about this with flock cameras the other day...what's our actual ROI? Was the world horrible before and these initiatives are going to close a monster crime gap or is this just a giant fishing expedition ... just because?
Think back to the capital riots/insurrection/what-ever you want to call it; they used similar systems to identify and arrest those participants. Heavily publicize how many people and who; doesn't matter if you a 63yo grandmom or a pastor, we will find you and prosecute. Showing that you are prosecuting the "normal" people is part of it, show that and you make them less likely to show up to the next thing, less likely to provide support.
The Capital has many cameras owned by the feds, so they could easily do that. Chicago, Atlanta, LA not so much. When anti-ICE action takes place with protestors in black block, going under umbrellas, makes it hard to identify and prove. With strategically placed cameras, you can see what cars came in the area. You get statistical data that shows if they are there normally there. Get enough abnormality and you get enough for a search warrant.
Seems strange to use prosecuting a group of people attacking the democratic process, the basis of the country and a clearly treasonous act, as an example of cameras being used to “over” prosecute to intimidate the public.
Why should it matter if you are a 63yo grandmom or pastor?
Can we cut to the bone a little bit? The recent crime panics are not about a partner assaulting their live-in partner or a random home burglary. There is no real "ROI" to be had.
It's purely about the unease of living in chaotic cities, the random stabbings, the shoplifting, the visible homelessness etc. Flock is the stopgap here.
Partly the "feeling" of chaos is just that, a feeling, driven significantly by algorithmic feeds feeding us every random crime from around the country 24/7. Husband murders wife in a murderous rage? No one hear's about it. Mentally ill man murders a woman on the train in a Tier 2 city, immediate nationwide breaking news.
The other part though is a real dissolution in how we take care of our mentally ill. Complex topic [1].
I think complaining about Flock is complaining about the symptom. Today we dogpile on Flock to get it cancelled, tomorrow the public will reach for something else. We have to fix the underlying disease, which is a combination of the two factors above.
Some of this stuff does feed into the perception though. Flock provides more footage for media to clip, for example. Or you can look at Ring cameras and people getting worked up about joggers or neighborhood kids because now they get alerts and have neighborhood chat groups, etc.
Let us also acknowledged that we're living in the safest time in history and modern American cities are extremely safe, despite the unhinged propaganda from the right.
We can acknowledge that and also acknowledge that a lot of petty crime goes unreported/unresolved because the police can't do anything, and that our target should still be 0 crime and folks are entitled to be upset about any amount of crime. Recent example I have is a work truck behind my neighbors house in the alleyway. Parked for less than 5 minutes, went inside a garage to look at something, came back, and someone had already walked off with their tools. I sort of got the guy who did it on video which I provided to the person who was victimized, but who knows if anything ever really came of it. Probably not.
What is also missing here is that even if there is not criminal activity occurring, there is a general influx of highly anti-social behavior occurring that feeds in to the perception that higher rates of criminal activity occurring. This is very noticeable when you see people casually running red lights, driving without registration, yelling and screaming at people on the street or at the bus stop, and more. Even if I'm unlikely to be a victim of a crime, I don't feel safe when these anti-social behaviors are occurring, people are shoplifting and now going to CVS feels like going to a third-world country.
Framing this as right-wing propaganda I believe is a mistake and if you are a leftist it just loses elections for you because even if the folks who are concerned about crime levels are wrong (they're not though) the perception matters much more than reality. Denying the perception implies you deny the reality too and fewer people are going to vote in favor of candidates who tell them that what they see for themselves isn't happening.
The usual retort here is that the anxiety driving the adoption of Flock can't be seen in crime statistics (which is mostly measuring partner/family crimes ala "murder rate is down").
The random smattering of shoplifting is never reported, the unhoused man in a fit of rage yelling at passers-by is never filed with the police. But in the privacy of the voting booth, people will vote for more Flock cameras.
Instead of waving off concerns we should be addressing them better.
its one of the value function that makes it almost impossible to evaluate.
Lets imagine that catching someone in the Interpol list of wanted terrorists is a huge catch. You would expect the avg catch rate to be almost 0 but once one is caught the avg value of the system becomes very easy to justify.
Its the same idea as having photos of known terrorists in airports and train stations to see if guards recognise someone. But with the added benefit that the facial recognition should not miss them.
If the evaluation function is it costs X to run each day and we caught Y number of criminals who robbed phones worth Z > X then the system will come off pretty badly in terms of ROI.
That’s not hard to value, it just doesn’t make Flock look particularly good. If these actually work well, you would expect the average catch rate to be nearly 100%. We had decent rates just having humans look, Flock should be clearing those like crazy if it works.
It doesn’t. I had a car stolen, called it in as they pulled away. I live a block from a Flock camera, 2 others apparently captured it. Car wasn’t intercepted, car was never recovered, no arrests were ever made. They could have put up scarecrows and it would have done as much good for a lot cheaper.
> the system will come off pretty badly in terms of ROI.
It’s a bad evaluation function. A lot of the cost of crime isn’t directly the crime, it’s the economic deadweight of trying to deter the crime. Every car needs anti-theft parts, lots of people buy home security systems, armored cars to do bank drops, etc, all this stuff we pay for that exists solely to try to stop crime.
Flock would look great if it worked so well it made armored cars and car anti-theft obsolete. It won’t, but if it did the ROI would be crazy.
That only happens because you’re poor. If you were someone the police would have done more. My friend that is rich, always has an easy with with police when some problem happens.
In reality, Flock cameras are bought for “law enforcement”, using taxpayer dollars (therefore free to the people making decisions) and enable both feelings of omniscience and the ability to stalk exes.
So ROI is pretty good when the I comes from someone else and the R is and random act of spying that makes the operators feel powerful.
Cynical, I know, but not empty cynicism I hope. All evidence leads me that way.
The question is if the value of the database (to any party, present or future) of all collected data is greater than the value of catching that one guy (or one guy every few years).
I truly think it's safetyism. People seem to have a lower and lower tolerance for risk as society gets safer.
Since governments are run by people, this safetyism
has become enshrined in law, typified by nonsense like criminalizing free-range parenting and mass surveillance.
It would be so nice of government projects and regulations came with some sort of KPO. And if they aren’t reached the thing is reverted/removed. With a bit of flexibility of course, to be sure there is room for debate. I’m sure that could be gamed in lots of ways but with the current status quo is just so much vibes
It would be interesting to see how these are justified internally. If I had to guess, it’s either excess budget being channeled into “something” or a justification to reduce street patrols/street crime.
The real ROI is the change in behaviour of people constantly surveiled. We know people change their behaviour when under constant scrutiny and this why the elites want it.
I've had an idea in the back of my head but I'm no businessman so have this one for free.
Build an AI model, train it from the catalogues of JD Sports and Sports Direct (and other brands like Stone Island etc.) and how to detect balaclavas, illegal electric bikes and e-scooters. Have it link to cameras and do a percentage chance using machine learning on chance of crime. Also increase the percentage if a 'wheely' is done (riding only on back wheel).
Would minority report the majority of crime in this country in one fell swoop.
Could call it ScroteScanner.
Some would call it discrimination but the majority of ASB I see around my area are people dressed/using those exact things.
If they start to catch-on (unlikely) then worse case we have a fancier looking society with gangsters in suits again.
They should just round up and imprison all the people who walk in my neighbourhood.
Some would call it discrimination but the majority of people who commit crimes in my area are people who can walk. I rarely see the wheelchair crowd pulling off B&Es.
Oh, or people who wear clothes. Criminals seem to like wearing clothes. Point proven: you never see nudists shoplifting Old Navy.
People on illegal escooters or illegal electric bikes are already committing crimes, there's rarely a decent reason to be wearing a balaclava in the city.
As I said, machine learning to take all these pointers into perspective.
I think what makes this resemble a moronic idea is it’s a thin veneer of an invention based on your personal stereotyped perspective.
The real challenge, if you wanted to work on the meat of the issue, is that we need to reduce crime without catching the innocent in the net, without having a chilling effect on legal behaviour and people’s rights, and without normalizing the mindset that we should just precrime people.
One of the core points of Minority Report is in the film’s title: that even if technology becomes 99.99% accurate, we are still damned by the destruction of due process and the presumption of innocence.
I think ideas like yours belong in the incinerator.
The unlicensed ebike, while not a serious problem, is a really annoying one in certain places, and everybody suspects that it's not a wave of people doing it but in fact a fairly small number of people doing antisocial things over and over again. Who are relying on being untraceable and on a versatile getaway vehicle.
Note that "illegal motorbike with no plates" is an offense that you can detect just by looking at it. There's no "pre" in the crime. The problem is either stopping them or tracing them.
The balaclava thing is stupid, but you're missing the point that they're already doing something illegal. If you think anti-ebike law is stupid then that law should be repealed, not ignored.
While what you say has merit in isolation, you're replying to a post where the person says "they're already doing illegal things". If the cameras pick up people "breaking the law", using further algo on that seems... sensible?
EG, the gatekeep is 'already should get a ticket or something'.
I actually oppose all cameras, and think we should just have more police in the streets. It's how policing used to be done. Human judgement.
> Is arresting someone for (what fact about?) their scooter actually making society better?
In London people are scooters are often mildly annoying.
>Comments like these reinforce my belief that the UK is a panopticon because UK residents sincerely want one and not because the government is corrupt.
You are correct, despite what you will see on HN/reddit the UK electorate are united only in wanting more authoritarianism at any cost.
Yes, they actively make public spaces unpleasant and dangerous. Town centres are on their knees as people don't want to go there anymore due to ASB like this.
It's not just them, you've got ebikes going 30mph, kids/teens congregating on bikes in balaclavas. Come look for yourself and see if you don't feel intimidated.
Oh! I live somewhere like that. I just don't be intimidated by things unless I have a reason to be intimidated. Although scary looking people congregate sometimes, they've never actually harmed me so I don't avoid the whole area. And the few times I've ever interacted with a scary looking person, they were chill.
Tendency to fear has to be one of those personality axes. Studies found that political conservatives have larger amygdala (the part of their brain that governs things like fear) so maybe this is something similar.
In the age of everything being filmed in a panopticon, I look at the teens wearing balaclava and wonder where they bought theirs. Good on them for having a modicum of privacy.
Trouble is you'd be scooping up 90% of boys in a certain race, class, age bracket, because those ballys and bikes and Nike tech are effectively fashion at this point even if you're doing nothing wrong. And if that's the case you don't need AI you can just wait outside the school gates and arrest everyone.
Those are the types likely to be committing a lot of the crimes. Come to a working class town and see for yourself, or go on any local town Facebook group or council page and look at the comments.
People who make comments like this don’t have to deal with walking stereotypes committing crimes in broad daylight and it’s so fucking annoying for people who do.
And let me remind you those criminal stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason.
I would rather all my shit get stolen at gunpoint and my local grocers close due to rampant shoplifting than put a single innocent man in jail over some bullshit “minority report”-esque pre-crime algorithm someone with three squares and reliable housing decided was a good idea.
The problem with stereotypes isn’t that they are usually right (they’re not), it’s that they’re sometimes (usually) wrong.
The other problem is that stereotyping an entire social group simply alienates the members of that group. They perceive that society doesn't trust or value them, so in response they don't trust or value society. See e.g. racial profiling in the London Met's use of stop-and-search powers.
If your ultimate goal is harm-reduction, then stereotyping is irrational.
Unfortunately it seems most of the people who I've spoken to that advocate for prosecution-by-stereotype don't want to understand the nuance involved in causing groups to become disenfranchised. In the eyes of the people I've spoken to there is never any reason to commit a crime and if you associate with people who do then you're no better than the criminals.
Having lived in shitty neighborhood all my life (not in the UK tho'), I find this pretty laughable. First off, you would be surprised at how petty criminal caught on police tactic fairly quickly and find way around them. But in general, you will just get petty criminal. Sure they are a nuisance, but more a symptom than a cause. And let's say we do just that. You arrest thousand upon thousand of balaclava-wearing, e-scooter driving dudes. What do you do then ? Most of them will have to be released because, well, they didn't do anything. You might catch some of them with minor charges like drug possession or possession of a knife or something.
You successfully wasted thousands of police and justice man-hours for a few petty charges which won't change anything.
“Solving” crime is a hard problem, and one with 0 simple solutions and many, many things we have to work on as a society. Your idea is a net negative in prertty much all aspect.
Don't you think that isolating people in poor conditions amongst hardened criminals might make them more likely to commit crime when they get released?
Hook this up into the facial recognition tech they're in no doubt are already using, and then you could also collect data from people's social profiles, ensure they vote for the right parties and generally don't get into trouble like opposing mainstream political ideas and such things.
I've spent a whole of 15 seconds thinking about this and I don't foresee a single drawback here, lets just try it and see if we can prevent future crimes 100%, because then the future will have been saved.
We also need a points-based system on the tube, if you’re walking slowly in tunnels blocking traffic at rush hour because you’re staring at your phone you get a point. 5 points and you get a 6 month ban from the tube.
Not excusing it but it's a large reason to why people skip red lights on rented bikes and electric scooters. It's more of a reason than just doing it because you're not afraid of the law.
The degree to which the British underclasses adopted a dress-code in the late '80s (quite conveniently, for the authorities), is a social phenomenon that should be studied. They openly self-discriminate, willingly reducing opportunities and outcomes. Was it just evolutionary adaptation (tracksuits make it easier to run in dangerous situations), or was it pursuit of a tribal sense of belonging?
Hah, you could argue it was heavily influenced by Italy. You had the posh Milanese young people wearing brands (also as tribal markers). Same phenomenon, but at the opposite end of the class system. The British 'football casual' crowd were obsessed with that fashion in Italy.
IMO they're really just aspiring to be able to afford high-end versions of the same clothing. It's the opposite of trying to look poor. Misguided, obviously
That is true of some religions - e.g. moralistic therapeutic deism. It is sort of true of Buddhism because of belief in karma, but that is an automatic mechanism rather than a punishment.
It is not true of Christianity, which promises forgiveness, nor of the other Abrahamic religions.
Not a theologist, but pretty sure that the default destination for the bad Christians is hell.
There is an out-of-hell card you can get if you pay your dues to the local enforcement branch (before you die, they need today’s money not after life checks)
Yeah following on this, when you look at places that actually are low-crime it's almost always cultural. But if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail I guess.
This is a take I hadn't heard before, pretty interesting. I wonder if there are already any fiction out there where some widespread religion turns out to be an automated mass surveillance and policing system gone awry. Neat concept
> "The need to be observed and understood was once satisfied by God. Now we can implement the same functionality with data-mining algorithms."
> "God and the gods were apparitions of observation, judgment and punishment. Other sentiments towards them were secondary."
> "The human organism always worships. First it was the gods, then it was fame (the observation and judgment of others), next it will be the self-aware systems you have built to realize truly omnipresent observation and judgment."
> "The individual desires judgment. Without that desire, the cohesion of groups is impossible, and so is civilization."
> "The human being created civilization not because of a willingness but because of a need to be assimilated into higher orders of structure and meaning."
> "God was a dream of good government."
> "You will soon have your God, and you will make it with your own hands."
I don’t think it’s fair to conclude this doesn’t work at all.
The reason they did not get any arrests could be that sought-for criminals now avoid those stations. Given that there are relatively few of such criminals, that’s hard to prove or disprove (traffic would go down, but only by a slight amount)
It also could mean such criminals already avoided those stations, to start with. Again, hard to prove.
It also might mean people misbehave less now at these stations. So, did the number of incidents at such stations go down?
That, I think should be easier to (dis)prove, but also doesn’t require running live face recognition. Recording and only looking at recordings after an issue is reported would be the better option.
Shouldn't the burden of proof be the other direction, that it's both cost-effective way to prevent crime? And that the cost should include not only pricing but all of the other negative externalities of removing privacy (such as deliberate abuse by bad actors inside or outside the government).
I’m very against this type of pervasive surveillance, but that number seems implausible. The police may have only loaded a small group of suspects into the system, only targeted specific individuals, or some other reason we’re not aware of. The police protecting some criminals wouldn’t be a departure from standard practice in the UK.
That was my first thought. They scanned roughly 1% of the UK’s population. No way they didn’t identify any wanted criminals unless the set of wanted criminals scanned for was only a tiny fraction of the overall list.
Where's our buddy Garrett Langley or even YC's Garry Tan to come to the defense of the privatized surveillance state?
Pretty much all I ever read about these systems is heinous false positives. I've currently set up automation to pull the local data that includes police activity. One of the towns over from me has, at least, 6 Flock cameras (probably more) for a locale of less than 2000 people. I've not once seen anything related to ALPR or any camera system providing any influence on assisting a crime. You'd think Mr. Langley would be begging police chiefs around the US to put in a positive spin to public information around these digital watchers.
But the morons buying these systems are also the morons taking state tax dollars to buy SWAT vehicles for 100s of thousands of dollars because they want to cosplay GI Joe. Yet... You want a park? Or something that's actually useful in your local community? Fund raise it yourself is the response.
Where does this end? Drones following each of us every time we leave our homes and otherwise peeking through our windows, doing spectrum analysis, etc.?
I mean a lot of our lives, resemble 1984, but this is literally the UK, where 1984 was set. And then they are doing all of the 1984 activities with no shame whatsoever.
Hitler was elected democratically. Democracy is non-excuse for the complete destruction of civil liberties.
Fare evasion will be a big use-case for facial recognition at railway stations. I wonder when they will admit it, if they haven't fairly secretively already. Same as bodyworn cameras (initially introduced to reduce assaults, now they admit they're used to tackle fare evasion too)
It really won't be long until your face is scanned well before you get to the barrier, then an alarm goes off and blocks the barrier. Or it detects barrier-pushing then automatically begins an investigation or issues a fine.
And of course there is facial recognition + AI for retail profit maximisation
Their watchlist was only ~450 people, and it was restricted to people relevant to the transport police. The system was also overt and clearly marked, there were alternative routes that avoided the cameras and even then they were on 3-6 hours per day.
The headline suggests this system is not only invasive but also ineffective. While I agree it's a privacy nightmare, I also think those idiotic deployment conditions set them up for failure. At least we know there aren't many false positives, it could've been worse.
Yeah but from the PoV of the government everyone you meet could be a future criminal. They could have hateful thoughts towards the INGSOC party or towards Big Brother. They could even be allies of Emmanuel Goldstein. How else do you expect the government to keep you safe from such criminals, brother?
I guess I should've included a sarcasm warning. But that's certainly a view a certain type of powerful people seem to hold. Richelieu's famous (probably apocryphal) quote and all that.
Ah, the famed "Nuh-Uh" defense. The fact is, Tech companies and the bros that head them have all of the money, all of the connections, and all of the information. Those of us not on that side of the equation do not. They may not be the initial cause of so many problems but they certainly have accelerated and deepened a great many of them in their race to extract (somehow) even more wealth from the societies that host them. We aren't nearly angry enough at them IMO.
Honestly I find the correlations that LFR has worked in other places very weak.
For example the falling of the crime figures could be just because there where more officers around attending the camera's. Or actually that just there being a camera already has a deterring effect, I assume the perpetrators didn't know it was LFR.
I also wonder if the resources spend in a traditional way would have been more effective. I think 3 month trail to make 103 arrests seems a bit low, but I am not familiar with the normal "arrest rate" in that area.
> violence against women and girls, whose travel behaviours are shaped by experiences of sexual harassment and sexual offences”.
So much effort to protect little girls. Yet if you get stabbed, say clearly that you've been stabbed, they will not believe you. Then they will arrest your dead body.
What saved his reputation, but not his ass, was that he was overstimulated teenager recording snapchats of everything. Footage from CCTV or surveillance cameras wouldn't change anything.
> We know the technology works, but using it in supermarkets to deter shoplifters and prevent attacks on staff is very different from deploying it to catch people on a public transport network. Success in a shop means no such people coming in. Success for the police trying to catch people means people being caught. In that respect the trial doesn’t appear to have been very fruitful.
ahahaha. "My magical face detection software worked because (according to our detection software) none of the undesirables came in!"
Security theater is out of control. I just returned from traveling abroad to some major cities in Europe and getting back to NYC, it's the only city I've been in that let's the cops run wild and fly helicopters low over the city. Not so the cops can do any actual work but so they can take a 2 minute short cut to their private helicopter base instead of flying over the water. No person I have ever met enjoys the sudden loud noise from helicopters flying just above their head in the middle of the day/night. There are campaigns against it[0], and people despise cops. It would be such an easy win to gain some better relations with the communities and yet the cops keep on doing it.
The cops keeps doing it and the rich join in on holidays to take a shortcut to JFK from downtown Manhattan. The city were 9/11 was apparently a big deal wants to you feel like you're in a war zone all the time for shortcuts and a few $ savings on helicopter fuel.
This to me is the ultimate security theater environment, where the state is constantly pressing a false sense of FUD.
You’re conflating private helicopter rides (which are annoying and frequent) with police ones, which are generally pretty necessary. I’ve only seen them out in my neighborhood after serious crimes where a suspect hasn’t been caught.
No I'm not conflating them, I see the NYPD tags on the map flying directly over Brooklyn to their helicopter base 5+ times a day. [0]
No they are not necessary, the East River is right there to fly over. I also have never read "cops failed to catch criminal due to long helicopter route back to base over East River" as a headline or a logical train of thought.
I'm guessing you're related to, or are a police officer yourself. Which means you're conflating truth with misdirection.
Those tags are far more likely the NYPD drone-as-first-responder flights they do launch quite often. The FAA gave NYPD beyond line of sight drone operations with NYPD ADS-B tags. [1]
Instead of misunderstanding things, assuming it supports your preconceived beliefs, then making further unwarranted assumptions about others to reinforce your misguided world view, simply google to see if those tags are helicopters.
I am not misunderstanding anything. My beliefs are not incorrect. They are helicopters, I know what a helicopter sounds and looks like.
And furthermore, you're ignoring the entire issue is that PEOPLE OF NEW YORK don't enjoy helicopters flying overhead their city.
You are simply attempting to invalidate my statements but your links prove absolutely nothing in regards to the issue.
Instead of misunderstanding things and assuming your pro-helicopter bias supports your preconceived beliefs, then making further unwarranted attacks about my statements to reinforce your pro-security theater world view, simply google to see if those tags are helicopters. YEP! They are.
Don't project your FUD about what a helicopter is onto others. Don't reply to me and call me a liar and tell me I don't know what a helicopter is.
Your linked post is from 2 years ago, this has been going on for much longer than 2 years. Take your propaganda elsewhere.
For scale 500k people is 2 days of Liverpool Street Stations daily average
The article doesn't say, and I haven't seen the cameras, but it's not like you're getting every single person parsing through those stations.
But, yes, the numbers seems low.
[0] https://www.btp.police.uk/police-forces/british-transport-po...
Think back to the capital riots/insurrection/what-ever you want to call it; they used similar systems to identify and arrest those participants. Heavily publicize how many people and who; doesn't matter if you a 63yo grandmom or a pastor, we will find you and prosecute. Showing that you are prosecuting the "normal" people is part of it, show that and you make them less likely to show up to the next thing, less likely to provide support.
The Capital has many cameras owned by the feds, so they could easily do that. Chicago, Atlanta, LA not so much. When anti-ICE action takes place with protestors in black block, going under umbrellas, makes it hard to identify and prove. With strategically placed cameras, you can see what cars came in the area. You get statistical data that shows if they are there normally there. Get enough abnormality and you get enough for a search warrant.
Why should it matter if you are a 63yo grandmom or pastor?
It's purely about the unease of living in chaotic cities, the random stabbings, the shoplifting, the visible homelessness etc. Flock is the stopgap here.
Partly the "feeling" of chaos is just that, a feeling, driven significantly by algorithmic feeds feeding us every random crime from around the country 24/7. Husband murders wife in a murderous rage? No one hear's about it. Mentally ill man murders a woman on the train in a Tier 2 city, immediate nationwide breaking news.
The other part though is a real dissolution in how we take care of our mentally ill. Complex topic [1].
I think complaining about Flock is complaining about the symptom. Today we dogpile on Flock to get it cancelled, tomorrow the public will reach for something else. We have to fix the underlying disease, which is a combination of the two factors above.
[1]: https://time.com/6265241/america-care-of-mentally-ill-people...
What is also missing here is that even if there is not criminal activity occurring, there is a general influx of highly anti-social behavior occurring that feeds in to the perception that higher rates of criminal activity occurring. This is very noticeable when you see people casually running red lights, driving without registration, yelling and screaming at people on the street or at the bus stop, and more. Even if I'm unlikely to be a victim of a crime, I don't feel safe when these anti-social behaviors are occurring, people are shoplifting and now going to CVS feels like going to a third-world country.
Framing this as right-wing propaganda I believe is a mistake and if you are a leftist it just loses elections for you because even if the folks who are concerned about crime levels are wrong (they're not though) the perception matters much more than reality. Denying the perception implies you deny the reality too and fewer people are going to vote in favor of candidates who tell them that what they see for themselves isn't happening.
You can correct me if I’m wrong though.
The random smattering of shoplifting is never reported, the unhoused man in a fit of rage yelling at passers-by is never filed with the police. But in the privacy of the voting booth, people will vote for more Flock cameras.
Instead of waving off concerns we should be addressing them better.
its one of the value function that makes it almost impossible to evaluate.
Lets imagine that catching someone in the Interpol list of wanted terrorists is a huge catch. You would expect the avg catch rate to be almost 0 but once one is caught the avg value of the system becomes very easy to justify.
Its the same idea as having photos of known terrorists in airports and train stations to see if guards recognise someone. But with the added benefit that the facial recognition should not miss them.
If the evaluation function is it costs X to run each day and we caught Y number of criminals who robbed phones worth Z > X then the system will come off pretty badly in terms of ROI.
It doesn’t. I had a car stolen, called it in as they pulled away. I live a block from a Flock camera, 2 others apparently captured it. Car wasn’t intercepted, car was never recovered, no arrests were ever made. They could have put up scarecrows and it would have done as much good for a lot cheaper.
> the system will come off pretty badly in terms of ROI.
It’s a bad evaluation function. A lot of the cost of crime isn’t directly the crime, it’s the economic deadweight of trying to deter the crime. Every car needs anti-theft parts, lots of people buy home security systems, armored cars to do bank drops, etc, all this stuff we pay for that exists solely to try to stop crime.
Flock would look great if it worked so well it made armored cars and car anti-theft obsolete. It won’t, but if it did the ROI would be crazy.
In reality, Flock cameras are bought for “law enforcement”, using taxpayer dollars (therefore free to the people making decisions) and enable both feelings of omniscience and the ability to stalk exes.
So ROI is pretty good when the I comes from someone else and the R is and random act of spying that makes the operators feel powerful.
Cynical, I know, but not empty cynicism I hope. All evidence leads me that way.
Since governments are run by people, this safetyism has become enshrined in law, typified by nonsense like criminalizing free-range parenting and mass surveillance.
it's there to keep the well behaving citizens in check.
very authoritarian at the core.
Build an AI model, train it from the catalogues of JD Sports and Sports Direct (and other brands like Stone Island etc.) and how to detect balaclavas, illegal electric bikes and e-scooters. Have it link to cameras and do a percentage chance using machine learning on chance of crime. Also increase the percentage if a 'wheely' is done (riding only on back wheel).
Would minority report the majority of crime in this country in one fell swoop.
Could call it ScroteScanner.
Some would call it discrimination but the majority of ASB I see around my area are people dressed/using those exact things.
If they start to catch-on (unlikely) then worse case we have a fancier looking society with gangsters in suits again.
Some would call it discrimination but the majority of people who commit crimes in my area are people who can walk. I rarely see the wheelchair crowd pulling off B&Es.
Oh, or people who wear clothes. Criminals seem to like wearing clothes. Point proven: you never see nudists shoplifting Old Navy.
As I said, machine learning to take all these pointers into perspective.
The real challenge, if you wanted to work on the meat of the issue, is that we need to reduce crime without catching the innocent in the net, without having a chilling effect on legal behaviour and people’s rights, and without normalizing the mindset that we should just precrime people.
One of the core points of Minority Report is in the film’s title: that even if technology becomes 99.99% accurate, we are still damned by the destruction of due process and the presumption of innocence.
I think ideas like yours belong in the incinerator.
https://theedinburghreporter.co.uk/2025/11/thirteen-e-bikes-...
Note that "illegal motorbike with no plates" is an offense that you can detect just by looking at it. There's no "pre" in the crime. The problem is either stopping them or tracing them.
EG, the gatekeep is 'already should get a ticket or something'.
I actually oppose all cameras, and think we should just have more police in the streets. It's how policing used to be done. Human judgement.
Comments like these reinforce my belief that the UK is a panopticon because UK residents sincerely want one and not because the government is corrupt.
In London people are scooters are often mildly annoying.
>Comments like these reinforce my belief that the UK is a panopticon because UK residents sincerely want one and not because the government is corrupt.
You are correct, despite what you will see on HN/reddit the UK electorate are united only in wanting more authoritarianism at any cost.
Tendency to fear has to be one of those personality axes. Studies found that political conservatives have larger amygdala (the part of their brain that governs things like fear) so maybe this is something similar.
And let me remind you those criminal stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason.
The problem with stereotypes isn’t that they are usually right (they’re not), it’s that they’re sometimes (usually) wrong.
If your ultimate goal is harm-reduction, then stereotyping is irrational.
It's a serious lack of empathy and understanding.
It would probably pay for itself.
The strongest predictor (by far) for committing a crime is having a prior criminal record.
It's "fell swoop".
I've spent a whole of 15 seconds thinking about this and I don't foresee a single drawback here, lets just try it and see if we can prevent future crimes 100%, because then the future will have been saved.
Rented you're charged by the minute so there's a financial incentive even for non-scrotes.
IMO they're really just aspiring to be able to afford high-end versions of the same clothing. It's the opposite of trying to look poor. Misguided, obviously
We try to reinvent something that claims that keeps tabs on everyone and for sure will punish you if you don’t behave well but will reward you if do!
The thing has a name. It’s the religion.
It is not true of Christianity, which promises forgiveness, nor of the other Abrahamic religions.
There is an out-of-hell card you can get if you pay your dues to the local enforcement branch (before you die, they need today’s money not after life checks)
> "God and the gods were apparitions of observation, judgment and punishment. Other sentiments towards them were secondary."
> "The human organism always worships. First it was the gods, then it was fame (the observation and judgment of others), next it will be the self-aware systems you have built to realize truly omnipresent observation and judgment."
> "The individual desires judgment. Without that desire, the cohesion of groups is impossible, and so is civilization."
> "The human being created civilization not because of a willingness but because of a need to be assimilated into higher orders of structure and meaning."
> "God was a dream of good government."
> "You will soon have your God, and you will make it with your own hands."
- Morpheus ( Deus Ex, 2000)
You're probably just parroting David Foster Wallace.
The reason they did not get any arrests could be that sought-for criminals now avoid those stations. Given that there are relatively few of such criminals, that’s hard to prove or disprove (traffic would go down, but only by a slight amount)
It also could mean such criminals already avoided those stations, to start with. Again, hard to prove.
It also might mean people misbehave less now at these stations. So, did the number of incidents at such stations go down?
That, I think should be easier to (dis)prove, but also doesn’t require running live face recognition. Recording and only looking at recordings after an issue is reported would be the better option.
Pretty much all I ever read about these systems is heinous false positives. I've currently set up automation to pull the local data that includes police activity. One of the towns over from me has, at least, 6 Flock cameras (probably more) for a locale of less than 2000 people. I've not once seen anything related to ALPR or any camera system providing any influence on assisting a crime. You'd think Mr. Langley would be begging police chiefs around the US to put in a positive spin to public information around these digital watchers.
But the morons buying these systems are also the morons taking state tax dollars to buy SWAT vehicles for 100s of thousands of dollars because they want to cosplay GI Joe. Yet... You want a park? Or something that's actually useful in your local community? Fund raise it yourself is the response.
Let me off this stupid ride, please.
Hitler was elected democratically. Democracy is non-excuse for the complete destruction of civil liberties.
It really won't be long until your face is scanned well before you get to the barrier, then an alarm goes off and blocks the barrier. Or it detects barrier-pushing then automatically begins an investigation or issues a fine.
And of course there is facial recognition + AI for retail profit maximisation
https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/national/24397770.network-rail-...
Trust the railway as far as you can throw it...
Their watchlist was only ~450 people, and it was restricted to people relevant to the transport police. The system was also overt and clearly marked, there were alternative routes that avoided the cameras and even then they were on 3-6 hours per day.
The headline suggests this system is not only invasive but also ineffective. While I agree it's a privacy nightmare, I also think those idiotic deployment conditions set them up for failure. At least we know there aren't many false positives, it could've been worse.
Uncomfortable facts certain bigots dont want to understand.
If they're not laundering money, trafficking people or avoiding taxes, they're likely a visitor who has come to commit bribery. Oh sorry, "lobbying".
Edit: added scare quotes because it's difficult to be sarcastic on the internet these days.
So we are now distracted while they reshape the world with hunger and death
> So we are now distracted while they reshape the world with hunger and death
How constrained must one's thinking be to think like this? There are massive actual issues, and they're not your hated group of choice's fault.
That's all you need for baseless claims.
"He said 103 arrests has been made so far and there was one false alert which did not result in an arrest.
Supt Luke Dillon said overall crime figures in the Fairfield ward, where the pilot has been held, fell by 12% per cent.
"We're seeing reductions in almost all crime types, certainly in shoplifting and robbery," he said. "
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2056r07rjlo
For example the falling of the crime figures could be just because there where more officers around attending the camera's. Or actually that just there being a camera already has a deterring effect, I assume the perpetrators didn't know it was LFR.
I also wonder if the resources spend in a traditional way would have been more effective. I think 3 month trail to make 103 arrests seems a bit low, but I am not familiar with the normal "arrest rate" in that area.
People are being matched against an existing watchlist so the people arrested are those the Police would arrest anyway if they found them.
"Last month BTP announced it was extending the trial for a further four months and expanding the deployments to include London Underground stations. "
So much effort to protect little girls. Yet if you get stabbed, say clearly that you've been stabbed, they will not believe you. Then they will arrest your dead body.
ahahaha. "My magical face detection software worked because (according to our detection software) none of the undesirables came in!"
The cops keeps doing it and the rich join in on holidays to take a shortcut to JFK from downtown Manhattan. The city were 9/11 was apparently a big deal wants to you feel like you're in a war zone all the time for shortcuts and a few $ savings on helicopter fuel.
This to me is the ultimate security theater environment, where the state is constantly pressing a false sense of FUD.
[0] https://stopthechopnynj.org/
No they are not necessary, the East River is right there to fly over. I also have never read "cops failed to catch criminal due to long helicopter route back to base over East River" as a headline or a logical train of thought.
I'm guessing you're related to, or are a police officer yourself. Which means you're conflating truth with misdirection.
[0] https://globe.adsbexchange.com/
Instead of misunderstanding things, assuming it supports your preconceived beliefs, then making further unwarranted assumptions about others to reinforce your misguided world view, simply google to see if those tags are helicopters.
Don’t project your incorrect beliefs onto others.
[1] https://www.skydio.com/blog/faa-issues-revolutionary-approva...
And furthermore, you're ignoring the entire issue is that PEOPLE OF NEW YORK don't enjoy helicopters flying overhead their city.
You are simply attempting to invalidate my statements but your links prove absolutely nothing in regards to the issue.
Instead of misunderstanding things and assuming your pro-helicopter bias supports your preconceived beliefs, then making further unwarranted attacks about my statements to reinforce your pro-security theater world view, simply google to see if those tags are helicopters. YEP! They are.
Don't project your FUD about what a helicopter is onto others. Don't reply to me and call me a liar and tell me I don't know what a helicopter is.
Your linked post is from 2 years ago, this has been going on for much longer than 2 years. Take your propaganda elsewhere.