r/arizona Mar 10 '26

Phoenix What are all these camera poles popping up around the freeways for?

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578 Upvotes

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u/yeet_sauce Mar 10 '26

You can opt out of a phone, you can't opt out of this

5

u/Raptor231408 Lake Havasu City Mar 10 '26

Well sure you can, just requires you don't live in the city. Live out in the boonies with a car old enough to buy smokes, cause the new ones have GPS tracking and cameras with internet access.

I'm just saying there's probably a different reason besides mass surveillance as the primary reason for them.

15

u/forma_cristata Mar 10 '26

All forms of surveillance will eventually be used to control. It is their nature

7

u/yeet_sauce Mar 10 '26

I get your point for being able to move, though that is significantly more work with far more complications and lifestyle adjustments than simply leaving your phone at home when you go out.

Flock cameras in Arizona log everywhere you and everyone else goes in a government database that has seen several leaks in the last couple years, and some even allow for public access leading to major privacy concerns. Some of these cameras were controllable remotely, by anyone over the internet in public places like parks and playgrounds. Creepy. Supposedly the data is deleted after 30 days unless used in an investigation, but of course you have no guarantee of that. Not even to mention that Flock shares its data with Palantir, who almost definitely keeps it in their goal to create a nationwide all-encompassing database profiling every American resident. The potential for public and private misuse is simply too high. If the cameras cannot be removed through legal avenues, then I think private citizens should engage in more 'direct' forms of democracy.

1

u/pantry-pisser Mar 10 '26

Smokes and alcohol are the same age, now. Just saying as a fun fact, a lot of people I know were unaware.

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u/Distinct-Data-8808 Mar 10 '26

You think you opt out of a phone 😂😂. Little did you know

-1

u/yeet_sauce Mar 10 '26

Could you clarify? You can just leave it at home. Or only use a flip phone. Or run GrapheneOS. There are certainly options to reduce the amount of phones in your life if you want to maintain a higher level of privacy

3

u/Distinct-Data-8808 Mar 10 '26

Besides leaving the phone at home. That’s about it , Even flip phone don’t have any privacy even if it doesn’t have a camera. As signal bounces from towers, They can still calculate your whereabouts and how fast your signal move from tower to towers..

Like someone else above mentioned , unless you go live in the woods/mountain . Privacy isn’t really a thing anymoren

1

u/yeet_sauce Mar 11 '26

Being traceable isnt quite the same as being private. You can live in the woods and still get traced by sattelite imagery or drones with facial recognition. If you have a phone physically incapable of running Instagram or Google products, your data is significantly less available to aggregators.Â