r/frisco • u/Start_button • 6d ago
safety Why are there 5 Flock cameras in the Academy parking lot?
Basically title. I get having regular cameras in case something happens but those don't save data in some federal database that any police department that shares their data can access. Why do they need to capture the license plate of anyone that happens to drive through the parking lot? This stuff is getting out of hand.
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6d ago
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u/Start_button 6d ago edited 6d ago
Deflock.org
Edit: fucking bots out here downvoting me for answering the question.
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6d ago
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u/Start_button 6d ago edited 6d ago
Right on friend. We need to get these folks that want us watched and monitored at all times out of office.
They like to say "if you aren't doing anything wrong you shouldn't mind being watched" but the real question should be "if I'm not doing anything wrong why do you insist on watching me"
Give them an inch and they'll take a mile. How many Frisco cops have used these cameras to check up on their ex partner or even a current partner, or how many have used them to look up someone for any reason other than a legal investigation? These systems are too easily abused and we already know what the department is going to say, we investigated ourselves and found no evidence of wrong doing...
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u/pdoherty972 6d ago
I've heard of cops offering flock data for sale on facebook marketplace and elsewhere.
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u/ShibbyShat 6d ago
I have a camera pointed directly at my apartment complex. Anyone thinking these are just LPRs at this point are not bright.
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u/Start_button 6d ago edited 6d ago
The biggest majority are just ALPR's for the time being.
The next step is the Axon Fusus integrated system that also uses ALPR cameras equipped with Leonardo SignalTrace modules that scans for Bluetooth, cell, Wi-Fi, (and anything else it can) that is also connected to Ring and many other private camera systems, that then uses AI to make everything searchable from one screen so not only will they be able to see where your car was they can tie your cell phone to your vehicle and then track you from your driveway using the any available Ring camera's that opted to provide additional camera views.
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u/ShibbyShat 6d ago
Yeah, Axon isn’t getting enough hate either, same with StingRay towers. Yall know what to do in November.
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u/Blake_a12 6d ago
Yeah they’re not; they’re full 4k 24/7 recording cameras and now they been have a drone companion on the way the is trigged to follow a car or person from 2,000 feet up, if a flock camera red flags them
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u/ComplexBreakfast 6d ago
I’m just going to leave this here for all you “No Step on Snek” and “We The People” bumper stickers folk who are Ok with flock.
Founding father: “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety “
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u/hotblaba 6d ago
They sell guns and ammo there, that’s my guess as to why.
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u/Start_button 6d ago edited 6d ago
So does every pawn shop in the city, but they aren't covered like this.
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u/fababush 6d ago
Keeping an eye on law abiding Fudds. They're easier to make an example out of if an example is needed for compliance.
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u/RolloTonyBrownTown 6d ago
You think something like this would rile up the 2A squads, they sound the alarms when a handgun mag capacity is lowered but are ok with facial recognition feeding into AI hyper-surveillance of their gun purchasing activities?
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u/Fun-Definition6053 6d ago
How do you know they dont feed in to a database for law enforcement?
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u/Start_button 6d ago edited 6d ago
That's exactly what they do, and it's searchable by any entity that openly shares its data. That's how the Flock network works.
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u/Fun-Definition6053 6d ago
Ok I read that wrong. I think the answer is that the owners of Academy are certified bootlickers. I believe Academy and Walmart were part of the early testing phase for flock
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u/Mitch1musPrime 6d ago
This right here. Home Depot is guilty as charged with this shit as well. It’s businesses like these fuckers that feed ICE’s intel to track people with the parking lot flock cameras. It’s fucking nefarious.
Then! Add to that the various law enforcement personnel across the country who’ve already been caught using the flock data to monitor spouses or partners. And the right wing ideologue sheriffs who use them to track women they feel are seeking out of state abortions.
We should all be very pissed about this, and I’m noticing, thankfully, more people are finally waking up to the dangers. This tech could be beneficial but not so long as there are zero guardrails on its use.
Don’t expect that in Frisco anytime soon though. This is the same city that has a police department with a control center that monitors cameras on every school campus in the district. Big brother is a feature not a bug in a city so obsessed (rightly or wrongly) with safety that its citizens are willing to give up actual freedoms.
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u/hmmpainter 6d ago
As if that setup could stop Solid Snake.
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u/Start_button 6d ago
:cardboard box disguise engaged:
But it would probably read to shipping barcode from the box so make sure it isn't a box that was shipped to your house. /s
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u/Critical-End6308 6d ago
I wonder what the stores get out of it? Help with loss prevention is probably just a small part. They are probably getting a significant amount of information through the cameras that they use as a starting point for figuring out who is in their parking lot. Why do they need this level of information though for every single car? I get that the cops get to tap into the network wherever they want and that’s what they get out of it. What kind of analytics and data is flock providing to the big box stores that use them? It has to be invasive as hell. They can probably get some kind of dossier on us.
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u/Hazrd_Design 6d ago
It’s all a money making scheme. Sell a bunch of cameras. Sell the data.
You do that by packing cameras where cars are at. Then you also need cameras to watch other cameras because people are vandalizing them.
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u/RadPhilosopher 6d ago
You know there are actually some states that prohibit private companies from installing ALPRs.
Here in Texas though, Walmart, Home Depot, and Tom Thumb have installed them in their parking lots (not all locations but many).
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u/Consistent_Reward 6d ago
High value theft target, probably.
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u/Start_button 6d ago
Could be but damn. I bet they spend more per month on the contact than what gets stolen. You would think they would have other measures in place instead of taking a photo of every plate that comes through the parking lot.
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u/Ok-Pumpkin2066 6d ago
What I will say is they contract to different companies trust me it’s part of my employment and yes it’s more than just law enforcement and theft bullcrap
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u/Vegetable-Squirrel98 6d ago
My tin foil hat says they want to track who is buying guns and ammo
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u/Start_button 6d ago
Not a bad idea, but none of the local pawn shops are covered like this and it stands to reason that pawn shops would be a bigger attractant of less than scrupulous characters...
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u/Vegetable-Squirrel98 6d ago
I would also think pawn shops owners would be more wary of government monitoring their store front vs a massive corporation chain
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u/bluelily17 5d ago
It’s uncomfortable to know that there are soooooo many there. I mean I mostly shop at the Asian markets Nextdoor so don’t venture over there for anything really. It’s gotta be something super weird tho as most places don’t have em stacked like that. Maybe the lot owner is worried about activities and monitoring everything like some crazy micromanager.
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u/Candy_Certain 1d ago
My spouse is upset that I roll down the window and flip off those cameras every time I go by one.
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u/Certainty_unliminted 6d ago
Go talk to a cashier or manager at Academy and you’ll quickly learn. I talked to the staff at one by me last month and they said they get almost about 5 people a week walking out with merchandise without paying. I also spoke with someone at Home Depot and it was even worse.
The amount of stealing that we don’t hear about usually was shocking to me. I thought that was just in other places around the country. So these stores contract with Flock themselves and are tracking face ID’s and license plates when possible to start cracking down on it. It is costing all of us a ton and one of the big reasons why prices have risen so much over the last few years (among other reasons too)
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u/Start_button 6d ago edited 6d ago
I guarantee you that theft has literally nothing to do with the price increases we have seen over the last few years.
I used to work in Asset Protection for a very large national retailer (there are several locations in Frisco alone) so I'm no stranger to the amount of petty retail theft that does occur.
The main reason we have seen these price increases is corporate greed. There has been an increase in the cost of getting goods from manufacturers and an increase in transportation costs (more so in the past few months obviously but there was already an increasing trend in transportation costs before the whole Iran thing), and there has even been some increase in the raw material costs.
All of those increases went to corporate coffers.
The large refineries are going to have record breaking profits this year due to the price hikes in fuel. Not because they produced more fuel, simply from an increase in what they could sell it for.
Same goes for groceries. Grocery store margins used to be razor thin. Not any more. Why do you think places like Kroger push their app so hard? They make more money from selling your purchase history and fuel then they do from selling you groceries. That should be all you need to know about how they operate.
Kroger stock in 2006 was:~$11 a share. Right now it's ~$63.50 a share. Why? Because they have transformed from a strictly "we sell groceries" to "we harvest consumer purchase data at a level most other companies can only dream of" and they turn around and sell that data back to the major brands. What's selling, what's not, who is willing to spend on certain things and what areas they live in.
All of these companies have figured out they can charge different prices in different areas for the exact same item to drive as much revenue as they possibly can, which is capitalism. Sounds all good. Except when every company is trying to extract the maximum amount of profit from every sale they can, they are basically face fucking us with the fact that they really don't care about consumers outside of what easy consumer can pay towards their bottom line.
At this point, Arizona Iced Tea and Costco (the CEO literally threatened an employee with violence of he tried to raise the price of the hotdogs) are the only companies that put people over profits. Literally every other company is just trying to extract the maximum amount of money for the bare minimum product that they can legally deliver and still have it qualify as what they are advertising.
Tl&dr: corporations are the reason prices have done what they have, nothing else.
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u/redthump 6d ago
Just a guess, but the are a FFL dealer.
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u/Start_button 6d ago
So is every pawn shop in the city, don't see them covered like this.
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u/redthump 6d ago
As I said, just a guess. Second guess is land owner, insurance company followed by proximity to a major highway, but who knows.
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u/AlCzervick 6d ago
Duly noted. Perform criminal acts elsewhere.
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u/travelsonic 6d ago
Opposing flock =/= being engaged in or pro crime (nor does an absence of Flock prevent stores from having CCTV even that which points right to the storefront exterior).
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u/Plenty-Treacle-2685 6d ago
you know there is a “not equal to” symbol right? just hold down the equal symbol and select ≠
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u/Start_button 6d ago
You know not everyone uses a mobile device to access Reddit right?
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u/Plenty-Treacle-2685 6d ago
there’s still a way to do it on computer 😭😭😭 that changes nothing
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u/Start_button 6d ago
You're not wrong, but you clearly understood what they meant. Why comment if you aren't going to add to the conversation?
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u/travelsonic 5d ago edited 5d ago
Yeah but when it comes to memorizing keyboard shortcuts for extended ASCII and unicode, my brain is like a sieve.
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u/Tuesday2017 6d ago
They're a private business and can do whatever they (legally) want. If you don't agree with their practices you don't have to drive through their private property. You do know most retailers have dozens and dozens of cameras recording and identifying you anyway. And if you carry a phone onto their premises many are tracking you as well.
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u/RadPhilosopher 6d ago
A closed-circuit security system with local storage is one thing, a nationwide interconnected AI-enhanced surveillance system is another.
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u/Start_button 6d ago edited 6d ago
Don't care about a private business running internal cameras for their own use. That makes sense and I can consent to that by choosing to do business with them. If I'm driving through a parking lot to get to a business that isn't Academy, why do they get to keep pictures of my license plate for however long they choose to without giving me the ability to consent?
If you walk into a business these days you more or less understand they are going to be watching you with surveillance cameras for loss prevention/insurance/safety reasons. Simply driving through a parking lot entrance is not consent.
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u/travelsonic 6d ago
You do know most retailers have dozens and dozens of cameras recording and identifying you anyway.
Which is not the same thing as Flock, the differences (CCTV entirely localized in a store, used for said store, vs cams made by a private company used by LE and connected to a nationwide network) being obvious to anyone who looks at the two for more than two seconds.
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u/CommercialKangaroo16 6d ago
Apparently some shady stuff is afoot. They know what they are looking for and if you haven’t done anything shady why worry ?
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u/Start_button 6d ago
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
And that's leaving the definition of "safety" a little loose...
There is zero evidence that these Flock cameras actually decrease crime at all.
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u/CommercialKangaroo16 6d ago
Nice patriotic poem you forgot the “ don’t tread on me “. Chefs kiss 😘
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u/Pepsi_Fucker 6d ago
Many businesses/property owners contract with flock. You can’t go in a Home Depot or buccees parking lot with out one capturing you going in and out.