I’ve heard from people that these are some kind of special cameras, possibly with AI, that can completely scan your phone that is, the files on your phone, your contacts and so on, I don’t know for sure. It’s possible that even if your phone is turned off, it won’t help. It’s scary for me.
Maybe it’s my paranoia, but if I remember correctly, 5 years ago I didn’t even know that it was possible to spy on people via Wi-Fi and thought that AI wouldn’t come soon, but in reality, the reality turned out to be much scarier. Holy crap.
I’ve read a few articles, but they’re aimed at reducing the risk so that people don’t panic, it looks like they’re just trying to give small hints; perhaps you know more?
No, a camera can not access your phone. Ever. At all.
Flock is a camera brand that governments use because they can has several recognition systems (face and lisense plate as examples) so camera operators know that deadlymouse drove their car along main street at 10:33am, parked in parking space 234453 at 10:35AM, and walked into Cashies at 10:36am.
At 11:12am they left Cashies, returned to their car and drove west along 2nd Ave at 11:17am. Now scale that to a neighbourhood, a town, a city. You can see how it gets very distopian very fast.
There have also been cases where police officers are abusing those systems to track people for personal reasons.
People are not happy with that level of intrusion in their lives, especially when the system is used by people with a history of abusing their power and failing to report people abusing it.