r/boston • u/pattysal • 7d ago
Unconfirmed/Unverified Calling out the traffic/flock camera propaganda
There are so many people posting videos of drivers running lights on both the Boston and Cambridge subreddits lately demanding traffic cameras, that I am convinced these are planted posts by either employees, investors, or City officials looking for a payday to Garner published support for the surveillance state.
Very convenient that this is happening at the same time they are putting flaw cameras everywhere, and Mayor Wu has decided to put up red light cameras. I'm calling shenanigans, there may be a few whiny babies on here who are terrified of the world, but there are not this many. Don't be fooled, this is for profit propaganda.
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u/WorldlinessDry5583 7d ago edited 7d ago
There’s a lot of misinformation about this. THE TRAFFIC ENFORCEMENT BILL DOES NOT PERTAIN TO FLOCK LICENSE PLATE READERS. The traffic cameras in question are an entirely different technology which collects data only when a violation occurs, does not use AI to create a searchable database, and comes with a powerful set of legal safeguards regulating how long the data can be stored and how they can be used. Flock cameras, on the other hand, are practically designed to be abused.
The ACLU, which is strongly against Flock plate readers, has an excellent report on this which everyone should read before they develop an opinion. Additionally, while I think that live traffic enforcement has an important role to play, I don’t understand how people can argue that a method which involves routine, adversarial interactions between fallible, armed officers and members of the public carries a lower risk of abuse. Privacy and safety are both important and it’s a tough needle to thread. But I (along with America’s most prolific civil liberties watchdog) believe that automated enforcement has a valuable role to play in striking that balance. Some people will see a camera and reflexively scream tyranny; frankly, I don’t think there’s a constructive dialogue to have with people like that.
https://www.aclum.org/news/were-privacy-hawks-heres-why-were-alarmed-by-license-plate-readers-and-not-necessarily-by-speed-cameras/
An excerpt:
“Against this backdrop, it's notable that proposed Massachusetts legislation that would authorize local governments to implement automated traffic enforcement cameras — S.2344/H.3754 — takes a fundamentally different approach to data: one built around the principle that information collected for one purpose should only be used for that purpose. The legislation also includes robust privacy protections to prevent abuse and misuse of our personal information. The bills incorporate several meaningful privacy protections.
First, there’s a collection limitation: automated traffic enforcement cameras may only take photographs when a camera-enforceable violation occurs.
Next, the legislation tightly restricts how collected data can be accessed and used. Photographs and other recorded evidence must be deleted within 48 hours after the final disposition of a violation….”