• phutatorius@lemmy.zip
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    16 days ago

    Until Flock, the vast majority of those cameras were privately owned and not integrated into any larger network. If the police wanted camera data, they had to ask businesses or homeowners, and there was no regulation of data retention, so if they wiped their recordings after 48 hours, there was nothing the police could do about it.

    It’s the aggregators of that data that are the real risk, not doorbell cams or shopkeepers trying to limit shoplifting or vandalism.

    • ArmchairAce1944@discuss.onlineOP
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      2 days ago

      Yeah, that was the thing. Most people still used VHS tapes back then and many would just reuse the same few tapes over and over, meaning footage from one day would be gone in a few days and since tape degrades eventually the footage will look like shit anyway.