Yeah, those are a massive, MASSIVE concern when it comes to pervasive surveillance.
When I lived in the UK it already had a similar thing in the form of license-plate-reading cameras all over the place (the UK is even a biggest civil society surveillance dystopia than the US, or at least it used to be but maybe the US has caught up with it).
When driving in anywhere but dirt roads in such a country you absolutelly are almost constantly under surveillance and that shit is going into a database were it will stay forever and ever.
Redlight cameras, however, need not include “always on” or even “license plate reading” features and, at least in the UK, those and speed cameras were a different kind of camera.
That said, it makes sense that Flock, being a private and profit-driven company, is lobbying for their cameras to also be used for redlights (and pretty much anything else that needs a camera) since for them that means extra sales and hence extra profits, none of which applies in the UK.
Cameras specifically to catch people running red-lights will only take a photo when a car crosses a red light rather than run continuously.
They’ll only have you “under surveillance” if and when you’re breaking the law by running a red light.
So if you’re so worried about “surveillance” from those cameras, don’t run red-lights.
There are other, newer cameras like those from Flock that run and check continuously. I prefer the old-school ones you’re talking about.
Yeah, those are a massive, MASSIVE concern when it comes to pervasive surveillance.
When I lived in the UK it already had a similar thing in the form of license-plate-reading cameras all over the place (the UK is even a biggest civil society surveillance dystopia than the US, or at least it used to be but maybe the US has caught up with it).
When driving in anywhere but dirt roads in such a country you absolutelly are almost constantly under surveillance and that shit is going into a database were it will stay forever and ever.
Redlight cameras, however, need not include “always on” or even “license plate reading” features and, at least in the UK, those and speed cameras were a different kind of camera.
That said, it makes sense that Flock, being a private and profit-driven company, is lobbying for their cameras to also be used for redlights (and pretty much anything else that needs a camera) since for them that means extra sales and hence extra profits, none of which applies in the UK.
Yeah, the old ones are fine, but they’re just turning into mass surveillance tools now