• blobjim [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 month ago

    I wonder which employees they have host and attend these events. Does Apple hire a bunch of police-type psychos? Do they find the most pro-cop software developers at the company? Do they make the actual people developing the software do it?

    The article says

    The timing of the story comes one year after the last Global Police Summit, and according to the report, the Apple employee who led the efforts—Gary Oldham—recently left the company.

    The details around his exit are unknown. Notably though, there was no Global Police Summit held this year. It’s unclear whether the event will return without Oldham at the helm.

    • Chronicon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 month ago

      seems pretty likely he didn’t think apple were bootlicking hard enough and quit, considering:

      In July 2024, Oldham told police customers that he’d not been able to secure budget for the 2024 Global Police Summit, but hoped it would become a biennial event. A week later, he emailed Californian police departments again to say he was leaving the company, without providing a reason why.t

      and I doubt they’re sending software developers to this sort of thing, more like marketing/communications people I feel like, but you’d be surprised how pro cop many techies are tbh. Especially on the older end, these are the same people who wrote the software for guided missiles and license plate readers and shit, they don’t see the problem. Even the more liberal among them, if they’ve thought it through, may not like police aesthetically but probably believe they need to exist more or less as they are