c/news · by homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 357d

Flock’s Gunshot Detection Microphones Will Start Listening for Human Voices

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/10/flocks-gunshot-detection-microphones-will-start-listening-human-voices

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/50110241

Flock Safety, the police technology company most notable for their extensive network of automated license plate readers spread throughout the United States, is rolling out a new and troubling product that may create headaches for the cities that adopt it: detection of “human distress” via audio. As part of their suite of technologies, Flock has been pushing Raven, their version of acoustic gunshot detection. These devices capture sounds in public places and use machine learning to try to identify gunshots and then alert police—but EFF has long warned that they are also high powered microphones parked above densely-populated city streets. Cities now have one more reason to follow the lead of many other municipalities and cancel their Flock contracts, before this new feature causes civil liberties harms to residents and headaches for cities.

246 points · 37 comments · view on lemmy.world

37 Comments

redsand@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 57 pts · 357d (18 replies)

Should be fun flooding these with false positives and adversarial noise.

TootSweet@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 357d (12 replies)

Get an old MP3 player. And speakers.
Grab the audio from horror, action, gangster, etc movies.
Make audio files with long periods (hours) of silence punctuated with about 2 minutes of screams and gunshots here and there.
Go to the location of a Flock microphone with the MP3 player loaded with audio files, speakers, and a trowel.
Bury the whole thing shallow and hit play.

extremeboredom@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 356d (9 replies)

Flock starts using Content ID match to filter out false positives from all known recorded media

rumba@lemmy.zip · 20 pts · 356d

Enter AI for its first white hat job...

Sonicdemon86@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 356d (1 reply)

Then use your own voice and gun to make sure Content ID doesn't work.

undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch · 4 pts · 356d

and gun

😆😭

TootSweet@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 356d

Then Flock goes deaf any time someone drives up with moderately loud music playing on their car stereo.

punk_princess@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 356d

thanks for the AV

redsand@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 356d

Adversarial noise

DoGeeseSeeGod@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 356d

Type to hire a voice actor

vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 356d (1 reply)

Play a game with complex audio simulation and go wild for a bit. May not be 100 percent but it may be variable enough to cause it. If you can't find a game with such a thing, look at the Fallout NV and 4 Nexus modders are batshit.

AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 356d

You made me realize that maybe Home Alone prepared an entire generation for the day we would have to fight dangerous but comically dumb criminals invading our home.

One of the dumbest IRL bad guys even made a cameo.

whiwake@lemmy.cafe · 7 pts · 357d

Or destroy it

MonkeMischief@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 355d

"Keep the change, ya filthy animal!"

(Old timey Thompson pew pew pew sounds)

Cassanderer@thelemmy.club · 15 pts · 356d (1 reply)

They are already well known for false positives on gunshots.

BanMe@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 356d

My city just ended their contract with our shot spotter company because it hasn't made anyone safer but has resulted in a ton of mistaken dispatches. People know they can fire a gun and simply walk away, it'll be 10, 20 minutes before police roll by. Who cares?

Skyrmir@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 356d

Great, we're gonna go from idiots blasting heavy bass, to idiots blasting anime porn sound tracks around the neighborhood.

Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 356d

Anywhere children are present...

treadful@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 356d

Maybe this guy was doing a public service.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lVUuuuJU7c

homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 357d

Flock Safety, the police technology company most notable for their extensive network of automated license plate readers spread throughout the United States, is rolling out a new and troubling product that may create headaches for the cities that adopt it: detection of “human distress” via audio. As part of their suite of technologies, Flock has been pushing Raven, their version of acoustic gunshot detection. These devices capture sounds in public places and use machine learning to try to identify gunshots and then alert police—but EFF has long warned that they are also high powered microphones parked above densely-populated city streets. Cities now have one more reason to follow the lead of many other municipalities and cancel their Flock contracts, before this new feature causes civil liberties harms to residents and headaches for cities.

AlecSadler@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 18 pts · 356d (3 replies)

What do these devices look like? I'm happy to just put really loud white noise machines right next to them.

EtherWhack@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 356d

Like a little black satellite speaker with a solar panel plugged into it.

phutatorius@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 356d (1 reply)

Applying a good-sized ball-peen hammer or a vise grip would be more effective, and more costly to them.

crystalmerchant@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 356d

And be careful not to use a bad-sized one

solrize@lemmy.ml · 13 pts · 357d (3 replies)

Cities now have one more reason to follow the lead of many other municipalities and cancel their Flock contracts

If it's legal to install that stuff at all, it's unlikely to stay left up to the cities. You have to expect that if someone (e.g. federal govt) wants it deployed, it will go in everywhere whether the cities want it or not.

Cancelling contracts at the local level is useless in the long run. The stuff has to be banned by legislation.

FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 14 pts · 357d (1 reply)

That’s just incorrect, the majority of these are run by local governments.

solrize@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 357d

That's NOW. As the stuff becomes cheaper and the voice recognition becomes more powerful, it will keep expanding like a corrosive gas.

Zedstrian@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 357d

has to be banned by legislation

The list of things that the legislature needs to do is a mile high, but things will only get worse and not better as long as fascists are running the show.

sramder@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 357d (5 replies)

Personal white noise generators?

extremeboredom@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 356d (2 replies)

You misspelled flamethrowers.

Blumpkinhead@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 356d

I like the cut of your jib.

sramder@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 356d

Awesome 😎

blargle@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 356d (1 reply)

Scramble suits

sramder@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 356d

You may be confused about the way that microphones work ;-)