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Driver Ticketed for No Insurance Just Because Flock (YC 2017) Said She Didn'ttechdirt.com

We’ve moved past cops doing stuff because a dog gave them permission to do it. Now, we’re at the post-truth era of policing, where cops will do stuff because a machine told them to do i…

76 points•HotGarbage•2 days ago•40 comments•
#didnt#just#insurance#flock#driver#ticketed#insurance just#driver ticketed

40 comments

ourmandave2 days ago
This is 100% cop's fault.

She presented a current insurance coverage card to the officer and he still ticketed her because Flock said she wasn't covered.

What would have happened if she showed the current coverage using the insurance app on her phone?

tzs2 days ago
Actually the State of Georgia said she wasn't covered. Flock reads the license plate, looks it up in various external databases including the state maintained insurance database, and reports the results.

In several states, including Georgia, that database is the electronic state database is the only legally authoritative record.

Still, the officer should probably have tried to look deeper because this was a temporary plate for a new vehicle and there is often a several days lag before the data gets into the database.

caconym_2 days ago
Why should a police officer trust a scrap of paper somebody could easily have faked vs. a massive networked software system that claims to have the up to date ground truth? What if, for instance, the victim got her insurance cards and then stopped making her monthly payments?

(Incidentally, I assume paper insurance cards will cease to be considered valid before too long, and handing your unlocked phone to a cop will be coercively normalized.)

Cops aren't intellectually inclined (or equipped, for that matter) to second guess a surveillance tool that's showing them an unequivocal answer to a question. This is 100% on Flock for selling a tool to users they know won't reliably question its output, despite whatever bullshit CYA terms and conditions come attached to it, and then failing to ensure that its output is correct.

ourmandave2 days ago
Ignoring the legal document that's supposed to be proof and going with the system is following your phone navigation into a lake level bad.
throw0101a2 days ago
> Why should a police officer trust a scrap of paper somebody could easily have faked vs. a massive networked software system that claims to have the up to date ground truth?

Why is the "scrap of paper" a problem now after they've been around for several decades (as has Photoshop and colour printers). It's a legal document: if the cop thinks it's fake they can call the insurance company and confirm.

In Georgia, where one of the incidents took place, the cops can lookup insurance status in real-time:

> The GEICS system works through required insurer reporting. Every insurance company doing business in Georgia must notify the state when a policy is issued, renewed, canceled, or lapses. Companies report these changes within 30 days. The Department of Driver Services maintains this data and makes it available to law enforcement statewide.

* https://www.bubbahead.com/blog/can-police-pull-you-over-for-...

downrightmike2 days ago
Paper is how it has always been. If 71% of the calls flock sends cops on are false positives, that means that 71% time is time cops aren't doing their jobs and we are less safe.
cgearhart2 days ago
This has been going on for awhile. There was a fella that got flagged by facial recognition in a casino. He was hauled back by security and arrested by the police for trespassing. Even though he gave police his license. They thought it was more likely a fake id than than the “99% match” from the software was wrong. And no accountability afterwards; no change in policy or training.
inerte2 days ago
Oh so Flock doesn't just record / monitor stuff, but while doing so, it proactively tells the police a car worth stopping is on the street? How did the cop know how to stop the car?
octol2 days ago
This reminds me of the opening scene of Back to the Future when the robotic arm dumps more dog food in to an already overflowing bowl. Can we coin this sort of technological outcome “feeding Einstein”?
schainks2 days ago
This is infuriating.

A modern police department should actively discipline officers that are too lazy to run the necessary checks to prove the human's paperwork is legit, especially when they have a computer that can do it for them right in front of them!

Cities adding ALPRs should also be holding the ALPR company financially liable for _every single mistake_ these systems make.

ourmandave2 days ago
He didn't need to run any check. She showed him a current insurance coverage card and he ignored it.

I don't even want to blame Flock for this level of incompetence.

wat100002 days ago
There a frightening lack of accountability all the way up the chain. The officer doesn’t care because their bosses don’t hold them accountable. The chief doesn’t hold the bosses accountable for that. The local government doesn’t hold the chief accountable. And ultimately the voters don’t hold the local government accountable.
brg2 days ago
It’s worse than that. In every jurisdiction, the police department is a revenue generating organization. Overtime, beats, and promotions are rewarded to the officers who pull in the most revenue from tickets and citations. You can check this for yourself. Officer of the year in many jurisdictions are those who have the highest parking tickets written, the most DUI arrests and impounds, or the most traffic citations. In general are not those with the most convictions, public service records, or positive feedback from the community. The accountability the organization and their reporting chain has is to revenue, not to the law.
schainks2 days ago
A literal bozo explosion going on in some cities / law enforcement organizations, and the _lowest_ layer has been handed Big Brother tech and told, "Just do what the computer tells you to do".

So, voters have to ban this tech or get a bill passed that makes the company responsible financially for screw ups. Is there a third option?

ToucanLoucan2 days ago
You can continue that all the way up to the President, a 37-felony convict.

It feels like every new innovation in our society now is just a new way to diffuse responsibility.

Read the full thread on Hacker News →

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