What Occurs When You Knowledge Scrape FROM the Id Distributors? – Bredemarket

There’s numerous dialogue about knowledge scraping, an exercise wherein Firm 1 takes the data publicly posted by Firm 2 and incorporates it into its personal data.

Within the identification world, this takes the type of an organization “scraping” the facial photos that had been publicly posted by a second firm, reminiscent of a social media firm.

I feel that everyone knows of 1 identification firm that’s well-known (a euphemism for “infamous”) for scraping facial photos from a number of sources. These not solely embody government-posted mugshots, but in addition content material posted by personal social media companies.

For sure, the social media firms assume that knowledge scraping is totally evil and horrible and identification distributors that do that must be fined and put out of businress. The identification vendor is query has a unique view, even stating at one level that it had a (U.S.) First Modification proper to scrape knowledge.

However what occurs when somebody desires to scrape knowledge FROM an identification firm?

A Skagit County courtroom case

404 Media hyperlinks to a Skagit County, Washington courtroom case that addresses this very concern: on this case, knowledge captured by Flock Security.

The case is CITY OF SEDRO-WOOLLEY and CITY OF STANWOOD, Washington Municipal Firms vs. JOSE RODRIGUEZ. The next are findings of reality:

“On April 10, 2025, Defendant, Jose Rodriguez made a Public Information Request to the Snohomish Police Division. He requested the entire metropolis’s Flock cameras photos and knowledge logs between 5 pm and 6 pm on March 30, 2025.”

This specific file doesn’t point out WHY Rodriguez made this request, however 404 Media offered a clarification from Rodriguez himself.

“I needed the data to see if they might launch them to me, in hopes that in the event that they had been public data it will elevate consciousness to all of the communities which have the Flock cameras that they could be public file and may very well be utilized by stalkers, or burglars scoping out a home, or different methods somebody with dangerous intentions might use them. My objective was to attempt getting these cameras taken down by the cities that put them up.”

The Metropolis of Stanwood (don’t know its relation to Snohomish) answered Rodriguez partially:

“Stanwood PD just isn’t the holder of the data you’re in search of; you could possibly request the data at FlockSafety.com.”

By the way, this can be a widespread concern with identification databases utilizing vendor softwares; who owns the information? I’ve addressed this earlier than concerning the Milwaukee Police Division.

Now some authorized expertise could possibly parse what the phrase “holder” means, particularly in regard to knowledge hosted within the cloud. Maybe Stanwood PD was attempting to say that because the data weren’t on website, it wasn’t the “holder.”

Anyway, the defendant subsequently made an identical request to the Metropolis of Sedro-Woolley, however for a unique date. Sedro-Woolley didn’t present the pictures both.

Then it will get bizarre.

What occurred to the information?

“The Flock data sought by Defendant from Stanwood and Sedro-Woolley have been auto-deleted.”

Effectively how handy.

And the listed statements of reality additionally include the next:

“The contract between Flock and Stanwood sates that every one Flock photos generated off Flock cameras situated in Stanwood are the property of Stanwood.

“The contract between Flock and Sedro-Woolley states that every one Flock photos generated off Flock cameras situated in Sedro-Woolley are the property of Sedro-Woolley.”

The decide’s ruling

Quick ahead to November 6, when Choose Elizabeth Neidzwski dominated on the cities’ declare that the Flock digital camera knowledge was not a public file.

“IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that Plaintiff’s movement for Declaratory Judgment that the Flock digital camera data usually are not public data is DENIED.”

404 Media famous that the cities argued that they resisted the request to…defend privateness.

“In affidavits filed with the courtroom, police argued that ‘if the general public might entry the Flock Security System by making Public Information Act requests, it will permit nefarious actors the power to trace personal individuals and undermine the effectiveness of the system.’ The decide rejected each single one in all these arguments.”

After all, there are those that argue that the police themselves are the “nefarious actors,” and that they shouldn’t be allowed to trace personal individuals both.

However the events might take the other argument

This isn’t the one instance of conflicting claims over WHO has the correct to privateness. In reality, if the police had been filming protestors and agitators and needed the general public’s assist in figuring out them, the police and the protestors would take the other arguments within the privateness concern: the police saying the footage SHOULD be launched, and the protestors who had been filmed saying it SHOULD NOT.

Privateness is within the eye of the beholder.