alt Hacker NewsSo police departments should have to develop and host all their administrative software also? I think we can all see why that would be a terrible idea. Police are like any other government agency or business in that they contract with the private sector for a variety of services that are not in their area of expertise.
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Develop, no. Host, yes. They should buy, own, and operate any technology like this on-prem. The only involvement that 3rd-party tech should have is sales, tech support, and maybe blind, encrypted backups accessible only by the municipality.
In other countries, police contract companies to develop software and run and manage the software themselves. Putting up a continental drag net to sell to government agencies is something I've only heard of from the US.
Nobody is saying cops should be writing software, but Flock shouldn't have access to the data and analysis tools it has right now. If American police can afford to be armed similarly to a small army, surely they can pay to run a couple of servers in a basement somewhere.
I'm surprised the USA is letting this happen given the culture of individual freedom that seems to have traditionally driven American laws.
> So police departments should have to develop and host all their administrative software also?
Yes. We're in an high technology and information age. Police should be well-versed and capable of understanding the technologies and informations that people use.
> I think we can all see why that would be a terrible idea.
I don't.
> Police are like any other government agency or business in that they contract with the private sector for a variety of services that are not in their area of expertise.
Why shouldn't police (or some law enforcement agency) be capable of operating and maintaining law enforcement technologies?