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Businesses Privacy

FedEx's Secretive Police Force Is Helping Cops Build An AI Car Surveillance Network (forbes.com) 47

Posted by msmash from the surveillance-society dept.
Twenty years ago, FedEx established its own police force. Now it's working with local police to build out an AI car surveillance network. From a report: Forbes has learned the shipping and business services company is using AI tools made by Flock Safety, a $4 billion car surveillance startup, to monitor its distribution and cargo facilities across the United States. As part of the deal, FedEx is providing its Flock video surveillance feeds to law enforcement, an arrangement that Flock has with at least five multi-billion dollar private companies. But publicly available documents reveal that some local police departments are also sharing their Flock feeds with FedEx -- a rare instance of a private company availing itself of a police surveillance apparatus.

To civil rights activists, such close collaboration has the potential to dramatically expand Flock's car surveillance network, which already spans 4,000 cities across over 40 states and some 40,000 cameras that track vehicles by license plate, make, model, color and other identifying characteristics, like dents or bumper stickers. Lisa Femia, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said because private entities aren't subject to the same transparency laws as police, this sort of arrangement could "[leave] the public in the dark, while at the same time expanding a sort of mass surveillance network."
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FedEx's Secretive Police Force Is Helping Cops Build An AI Car Surveillance Network More

FedEx's Secretive Police Force Is Helping Cops Build An AI Car Surveillance Network

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  • A use for Microsoft Recall (Score:4)

    by NotEmmanuelGoldstein ( 6423622 ) on Wednesday June 19, 2024 @06:22PM (#64562283)

    ... sharing their Flock feeds with FedEx ...

    I'm guessing this massive hoover-ing of data is needed for training AI software.

    ... close collaboration has the potential ...

    Finally, a use for Microsoft Recall: The driving-assist cameras on your car's windshield will be upgraded to license-plate readers that police can rewind and search at any time.

    Oh, no, I've said too much.

    • Isn't it nice that the fascist future that was going to arrive under Trump is going ahead under Biden instead? /s

      • Re: (Score:2, Redundant)

        by quonset ( 4839537 )

        Isn't it nice that the fascist future that was going to arrive under Trump is going ahead under Biden instead? /s

        Because what private industry does has squat all to do with the government.

        If you really want to talk about fascism under the convicted felon, here is Project 2025 [project2025.org] which is literally, in the truest sense of the word, a plan to impose fascism on this country. Rights will be taken away, certain groups will be imprisoned simply because of who they are, books will be banned and burned, government will impose strict controls on people while letting businesses run rampant, one religion will be forced upon the ma

        • https://i.imgur.com/RtUqGXt.pn... [imgur.com]

          I think points 2, 4, 12 are the founding principles of American exceptionalism. Points 7, 9, 10 have been standard practice in the USA for decades. To a lesser extent, the USA practices points 3, 8, 11 as well.

          Many of these points apply to Totalitarianism as well: The USA has numerous opportunities for change, many of them for the worse.

  • Ahhhh (Score:3)

    by sit1963nz ( 934837 ) on Wednesday June 19, 2024 @06:44PM (#64562311)
    "Land of the Free"

  • FedEx has a police force? That's news to me. I guess that should not be terribly surprising given railroads have had private police forces for a very long time and a company that deals with moving a lot of stuff by trucks would not be all that different in their need for a police force to deal with petty thefts and such. I just didn't know FedEx had their own police. Who else has a private police force that I don't know about yet?

    • FedEx has a police force? That's news to me. I guess that should not be terribly surprising given railroads have had private police forces for a very long time and a company that deals with moving a lot of stuff by trucks would not be all that different in their need for a police force to deal with petty thefts and such. I just didn't know FedEx had their own police. Who else has a private police force that I don't know about yet?

      I'm sure similar stories about Amazon and Walmart's police forces will be along in due course.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        I'm sure similar stories about Amazon and Walmart's police forces will be along in due course.

        Target (yes, that Target) runs a state of the art forensics facility that's so advanced, many police forces contract with Target to perform analysis on evidence.

        Target has it because it started out as a facility to monitor stores for shrinkage via shoplifting. It only grew more advanced from there as the facility was able to produce evidence for shoplifting rings and other things.

    • Re:The real news flash... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Wednesday June 19, 2024 @10:03PM (#64562713) Homepage

      It's called a security team. "Police force" is a bit of an overstatement. These aren't "police officers" in the traditional sense, they're more like security guards. "Police force" just sounds more cool.

      • "The police force, approved by the Tennessee government...":
        https://www.insidelogistics.ca... [insidelogistics.ca]

        "Carrier Sets Up Its Own Police Force, Gaining Seat on Regional Task Force Overseen by FBI":
        https://www.wsj.com/articles/S... [wsj.com]

        "But [in 2002], FedEx won approval from the state Legislature to take its security up a notch and organize a police force of commissioned law enforcement officers.":
        https://www.tuscaloosanews.com... [tuscaloosanews.com]

        • Yes, all that is true. Police departments have been deputizing citizens since the dawn of the Republic. Tennessee has essentially deputized the FedEx security team. Many security teams consist of off-duty officers.

      • It's called a security team. "Police force" is a bit of an overstatement. These aren't "police officers" in the traditional sense, they're more like security guards. "Police force" just sounds more cool.

        You are absolutely correct. I'd just like to add that the US Postal Service does have a police force [wikipedia.org] and Do Not fuck with them! If you commit a crime that interests the US Postal Inspectors, you have seriously fucked up. They're no less serious than the DEA or the Treasury department (think Secret Service).

        Fun fact: It is was US Postal Inspectors working with the Coast Guard that arrested Steve Bannon for wire fraud and money laundering [wikipedia.org] onboard Guo Wengui's superyacht.

    • Who else has a private police force that I don't know about yet?

      There's the US Postal Inspectors. [slashdot.org], but they're still Feds, not private.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jerrry ( 43027 )

      Who else has a private police force that I don't know about yet?

      China. They have a police force in the U.S.

      https://www.politico.com/news/... [politico.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      It's not really a police force.

      The article is somewhat convoluted, but what's happening is this.
      Flock Safety, makers of cameras, contracted with FedEx to put their cameras in FedEx vehicles. Those vehicles, as they drive around doing deliveries, record vehicle license plates as they pass by them.

      Flock Safety then passes that license plate information to the police. The only FedEx relationship is that Flock is paying FedEx to install the cameras on FedEx trucks as they roll around the nation.

      Flock Safety is

  • It should be illegal to store video from public spaces (including places the public is invited) for more than 14 days unless a there is reasonable suspicion a crime was committed and caught on the feed in question. Which should involve a police incident being generated.

    It should be similarly illegal to data mine said videos and keep the extracted information. Or share it. Even with parent, subsidiary, or partner corporations.

    For public surveillance, keeping anything other than 'hits' (when a system detec

    • This is important, and you're going to regret not believing that.

      No, I'm on board - I regret other people "not believing that". There was a time - within my lifetime - when news like this would have been a big scandal. Now it's not even a blip on a blip - it's a nothingburger, as far as the vast majority of citizens are concerned. That's sad.

    • They will not store the video, they'll store some records of who went where.

      Possibly with a screenshot or two in some places, which will get fewer as "the technology improves".

      Just like your nosy neighbor who always looks at the street from behind the curtain, except they will be watching from every window, not forget, and the records will be admissible in court. Oh, and with a very, very low rate of false positives, you'll be told.

      Besides, all data taken from angles where your "expectation of privacy" will

    • OK help me understand. You are suggesting that *privacy" should apply to *public* spaces? Isn't that contradictory?

      • No, everyone being under surveillance is unnatural and new, anyone older than a few decades would know that.

        • Well, it's not that new. I'm 57, and when I grew up in the 70's, stores were already collecting data on shoppers for marketing purposes.

          So yeah, it's new in the last 100 years. How does the newness make it make sense to demand privacy, in public?

          • They're demanding the right to not be under warrantless surveillance, not the right to be private in public.

            • Police have never needed a warrant to watch people (conduct surveillance) in public places. Courts have always held that this is legal and appropriate and constitutional. The only place where you have an expectation of privacy is on private property.

  • FedEx in bed with the police?
    FedEx going full Stasi on US ?
    Sounds like they might develop whole new profit centers on/from the proles.

    Sounds like more than an abusive Ex in the Feds...
    • ho ho.. we're a couple of Amazon RoboDogs away from .. that movie. Lots of movies now.
      that's just fucking great./s

      OOhhhh I want one too!! said every cop everywhere.

  • They have learned to love state surveillance.

  • A police force? (Score:4, Funny)

    by JamesTRexx ( 675890 ) on Wednesday June 19, 2024 @08:23PM (#64562491) Journal

    Did the Fed in the company name give management delusions of grandeur?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Did the Fed in the company name give management delusions of grandeur?

      FESPF doesn't really roll off the tongue either, not like USPIS does.

  • iIn Colorado they dont patrol highways. They are like wild animals on the highways.

  • This system is much better than anything China has. We are way ahead of them.

  • For more than a century, railroads have had their own police forces who are bona fide police officers, not rent-a-cops.

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