Flock says its new tool will help identify police abuse, but hasn’t explained how it works

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1:35Fox says its new tool will help identify police abuse, but hasn't exactly explained how it's going to work. I'm Imran Sheik and your weekend crunch featuring three big tech headlines starts right now. Google announced on Friday that it'll now allow users to remove a visible watermark from its AI generations, including images, videos and even songs. The company specified that this won't affect the invisible Synth ID watermark and C2PA standard-related metadata. Josh Woodward, the company's VP for Gemini, said in a post on Axe that this toggle will be available for Nano Banana, Omni, and Lyria models.

2:15He specified that the setting to turn the visible watermark off will be available in Gemini and Google's video editor, Flow, with support for Search coming soon. Now, this change reflects an evolving approach to labeling AI-generated media, as visible watermarks can often make content less useful for professional and creative work. But the need to identify AI-generated content remains. The feature's rolling out in the coming days, and once available, users will be able to go to Settings, Media Watermark to turn the visible mark on or off. Google's also open-sourcing a new library called Credentio to let developers embed a local validation mechanism in their apps.

2:56This comes after Anthropik's hotly debated move to include a watermark in text and files generated by Claude to comply with EU regulations. After trying and failing to delay the matter, Apple, on Thursday, submitted its proposal for the commissions it wants to charge on purchases made using external links inside apps on its iOS devices. In a new filing in the U.S. District Court of Northern California, Apple proposed new commissions of 15 % for standard apps, with further discounts for developers who are enrolled in special Apple programs. Now, under the proposed structure, small business developers would pay a 5 % commission on payments, while those in the Video Partner Program, News Partner Program, and Mini Apps Partner Program would pay 10%.

3:46Subscription renewals would also be reduced to 10%, the filing states. Now, the iPhone maker has been engaged in a years-long legal battle with Epic Games over its alleged anti-competitive policies regarding app store commissions, and had been attempting to stall its answer to the court's request for this part of its commission structure. Apple tried to argue that these lower court proceedings should wait until the Supreme Court ruled on another matter related to the case, whether or not Apple was in contempt of a court order when it imposed a new 27 % commission on purchases made through external links and imposed rules that restricted how developers could present those links to customers.

4:26While the Supreme Court on Thursday rejected Apple's bid to pause further action in the lower court's case, forcing the company to reveal its planned commission structure. Now, Apple's position is that it should be permitted to charge fees on in-app purchases made by users of its devices as a means to recoup its investments in the tools, technology and services that allow it to maintain its app store and software. Surveillance technology startup Flock announced a series of new policies and tools on Thursday, claiming they'll help curb abuse of its automated license plate camera reader systems and help keep its law enforcement customers accountable.

5:05Flock is now recommending police departments retain data for seven days rather than the previous 30 days. Along with this change, the company introduced what it calls evidence mode, which can be turned on when customers need to retain data for longer periods in, quote, exceptional cases, unquote, and requires a specific case number. Customers will also now be able to set limits on the data they share with other customers based on the type of offense that's under investigation. Now, the company's also highlighted a tool called audit assistance as one of the key changes. Flock launched the tool in April.

5:41Since then, Flock said more than one-third of its customers have turned it on, and the startup is now requiring all customers to enable it by the end of the year. Flock said audit assistance detects abnormal activity and flags it for administrator review, according to the blog post released Thursday. If that happens, the tool can automatically lock out users who have been flagged until an administrator intervenes. According to Flock, the tool has already helped customers spot and stop abuse. Several executives have touted the capabilities of audit assistance. But, you know, despite its stated importance, Flock has not explained in detail how audit assistance actually works.

6:20You see, some official comments provide some understanding of what audit assistance can do. It gets vague when trying to determine how it does it. For instance, Flock's head of trust and compliance, Ashley Haber, said in a video that the audit assistance can flag what may look like an odd search history from a specific user, helping customers understand how their users are operating the system. In another video, Flock co-founder Paige Todd said audit assistance actually flags unusual patterns early. Think a user searching the same plate repetitively for more than 30 days. There's more to this story, and you can read the full article right now at TechCrunch.com.

7:02And folks, that's your Daily Crunch. Today's stories were reported by Ivan Mehta, Sarah Perez, Lorenzo, Franchesi, Biciari, and more awesome TechCrunch journalists. We'll see you here next week, and until then, find us at TechCrunch.com.

7:43We'll see you next time. the season's most desirable menu has returned to Sweetgreen, featuring fall's best dressed. Make your move. Order on the Sweetgreen app.