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This can't be stopped. Better to stop resisting tech advancements and instead learn to adapt. Airports are starting to do this scanning as well, and they won't

This can't be stopped. Better to stop resisting tech advancements and instead learn to adapt. Airports are starting to do this scanning as well, and they won't go away; travellers don't know they exist and have few rights when in secure environments.

umvi 6y ago
The "right to not be observed" is not a natural right, nor should it be. The "right to absolute privacy in all places at all times" is also not a natural right, nor should it be. People should only be entitled to privacy in their own homes/current dwelling. That's it (with a few exceptions). People should not be entitled to privacy in public. I get that privacy zealots have to take extreme stances in order to counter-balance anti-privacy trends, but in real life, a world where absolute perfect privacy is the 24/7 default (public and private), is a world devoid of meaningful interactions between humans and also a world where criminals flourish.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  The "right to not be observed" is not a natural right Rights are granted through legislative processes. What is not a right today may be a right tomorrow. The "right to absolute privacy in all places at all times" is also not a natural right Is anybody asking for that? I haven't seen that anywhere. Can you provide a link?
  - umvi 6y ago
    > Rights are granted through legislative processes. What is not a right today may be a right tomorrow. There's a difference between "natural rights" (rights that are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government) and what you describe. The type of right you describe is capricious and whimsical. GP was complaining that airport travelers don't have privacy. So it seems like people are asking for it. Can you name some places you believe right to privacy should not apply?
    - lm28469 6y ago
      > There's a difference between "natural rights" (rights that are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government) Do you think these rights come from god or something ? There are no rights that are independent to time, law, culture or government.
    - PeterisP 6y ago
      Privacy (at least some form of it) is generally considered one of the key "natural rights" that all people have. Both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ind...) and EU Convention of Human Rights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_8_of_the_European_Convention_on_Human_Rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_8_of_the_European_Conv...) include privacy as one of the unalienable human rights.
  - nimajneb 6y ago
    Rights are enforced through legislative processes. Legislative processes can grant privilege, entitlement, and protection, but not a right.
- mindslight 6y ago
  However, the right to not be stalked is. Which is what is effectively happening when simple "observation" is scaled up into a network of surveillance cameras and surveillance databases following your location and activities around the clock. Running into someone you know and saying hello is socially acceptable [0]. Following someone around everywhere they go, waiting outside of their house, and writing down everything you see them doing is not. [0] It's socially encouraged, even. In case anyone has forgotten over the past several months.
  - umvi 6y ago
    > Following someone around everywhere they go, waiting outside of their house, and writing down everything you see them doing is not. So you are saying private investigator is an illegal occupation?
    - mindslight 6y ago
      The standard used for the sentence you quoted was "socially acceptable". Legally, private investigators operate in a grey area, and private investigators know this. Regardless, lone private investigators are nowhere near the level of scale where it is happening to everyone at once.
      - umvi 6y ago
        Do you have evidence that the scale of this is as large as you say? If Walmart maintains facial recognition records, and so does Target, but they are kept in separate data vaults, that is not large scale. Each company is just making their own observations about their own property. If the US federal government tracks facial recognition in all stores and public spaces in all states, well that is large scale.
        mindslight 6y ago
        In this instance, the "list of suspicious persons" is obviously some shared surveillance database, not just people who were previously kicked out of the Rose Bowl. In general, retailers share surveillance data with commercial surveillance bureaus, for example Retail Equation. Power always coalesces. Also "own property" is utterly fallacious. I'm pretty sure my face is my property. It feels like you're just grasping at various reductionist straws here.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  The difference is a matter of scope. If I’m photographing a street in NYC and you’re in it, you have no right to complain. You’re in public, that’s how this goes. Now if follow you around NYC for a week and only photograph streets you’re on, you do have a right to complain. Now that’s stalking, something you can get a restraining order over. Facial recognition feels much more like the latter than the former.
- blacksmith_tb 6y ago
  I think the argument is quantity vs quality here. In past, we had no expectation of privacy in public places, so you might be seen or even photographed, but realistically that happened rarely. But if facial recognition could capture your whereabouts at all times in public, that's a significant change in the level of observation and tracking, especially if that data then belongs exclusively to someone else.
- d4mi3n 6y ago
  As with many things, I believe privacy is less of a binary issue and more of a scale between two extremes. I agree that with modern technology it would be difficult to guarantee or enforce absolute privacy in public spaces--everyone has a camera on them at all times these days! That said, I think the EU got it right with ideas like the right to be forgotten. Knowing you were at a protest or frequented some store can be problematic depending on how that data is used and correlated. Knowing these things is also dangerous if this data sticks around for a long time--who's to say the political climate a few years from now will be anything like today? Being able to look up every indiscretion somebody ever made can be a tactic for discrediting people or strong-arming them to do what you want. Cherry picking historical data about a person can make them look any way you want them to when presented to an audience of the public or your peers in court. The thing I can't figure out is how we can find some middle ground in an ecosystem where not everybody will be acting in good faith. It's a real source of concern that deserves consideration.
  - umvi 6y ago
    > That said, I think the EU got it right with ideas like the right to be forgotten. Does RTBF extend to post-mortem privacy as well? I think RTBF should expire once a person has died at the very least. i.e. people like Harvey Weinstein might use RTBF to scrub their public image, but I want to know all the details after he has died. Otherwise you effectively have a permanent history-scrubbing tool, which is never good.
    - d4mi3n 6y ago
      That's a great point and another reason why it usually doesn't make sense to take privacy to an extreme. At the end of the day, privacy is a matter of private interest against (debatable) public good. It's nice for an individual to be able to start from a clean slate. It's not so great for society at large when such people abuse the system to do harm to others.
    - PeterisP 6y ago
      Privacy laws in general grant specific rights to people; and legally corpses aren't people and don't have the same rights. There tend to be some limitations for information about the deceased which are generally framed from the perspective of protecting the rights of their living relatives; e.g. false accusations that your deceased spouse did something horrific can be interpreted as an unjust attack on your reputation and could be grounds for you to sue.
- vangelis 6y ago
  It's the asymmetric nature of these things that I'm against. If you followed the developers around with a notebook and telephoto camera documenting their every move, you'd probably get picked up for stalking.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > The "right to not be observed" is not a natural right, nor should it be. “Natural rights” are nothing more than a fancy way of dressing up one’s subjective preference for the way things ought to be as a universal truth, saying “X is not a natural right” already includes the same meaning as adding “nor should it be”.
- lm28469 6y ago
  > a world where absolute perfect privacy is the 24/7 default (public and private), is a world devoid of meaningful interactions between humans and also a world where criminals flourish. That's an extremely naive take on the question. Technology knows no bound by itself, left uncheck it'll "progress" forever. If we continue like that, and granted it is technically possible, we'll end up in a Minority report style policing. If people don't rise against this bullshit there will be no coming back. AFAIk we had perfectly fine social interactions without facial recognition cameras at every corner or every streets, and giving up your privacy to fight "crime" is a ridiculous thing to do, it's the "think of the children" level of argumentation. Also, ask yourself who benefits from these things. They don't do that to make you safe or reduce crime, especially in the US, when you look at the history of these kind of laws you always find out that it was profiting private companies all along. I wouldn't be surprised if all of these are pushed by something like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_... https://ccrjustice.org/home/blog/2020/05/08/alec-s-corporate-control-our-government-life-threatening-especially-covid-era https://ccrjustice.org/home/blog/2020/05/08/alec-s-corporate... https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/What_is_ALEC%3F https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/What_is_ALEC%3F
  - umvi 6y ago
    > If we continue like that, and granted it is technically possible, we'll end up in a Minority report style policing. Wouldn't that be a good thing? The world of Minority Report had a effective murder rate of 0%. > Also, ask yourself who benefits from these things. They don't do that to make you safe or reduce crime, especially in the US, when you look at the history of these kind of laws you always find out that it was profiting private companies all along. Ok, but if I run a business, why shouldn't I be able to monitor who comes in my store and auto-flag repeat shoplifting offenders?
    - lm28469 6y ago
      Well maybe in a perfect world with perfect laws and perfect people who don't abuse tech and laws. It's kind of when jews registered themselves as jews when emigrating to pre ww2 Germany, what wrong can it do am I right ? There are many anti shoplifting methods that won't slowly creep into knowing my location and thoughts 24/7 and potentially be used against me when _thought of Thursday June 11 2020_ or _person met on Thursday June 11_ is deemed retro actively illegal in 2037. The question isn't to know if it would be a good thing in a perfect world, but how easy and how far can you push it the other way and make it something completely nefarious. To me the pros are far out-weighted by the cons on this one.
catalogia 6y ago
There has been at least a temporarily reprieve; thanks to Covid-19 in the summer, it's now socially acceptable to walk around town wearing a mask and sunglasses.

umvi 6y ago

The "right to not be observed" is not a natural right, nor should it be. The "right to absolute privacy in all places at all times" is also not a natural right, nor should it be. People should only be entitled to privacy in their own homes/current dwelling. That's it (with a few exceptions). People should not be entitled to privacy in public. I get that privacy zealots have to take extreme stances in order to counter-balance anti-privacy trends, but in real life, a world where absolute perfect privacy is the 24/7 default (public and private), is a world devoid of meaningful interactions between humans and also a world where criminals flourish.

reaperducer 6y ago
The "right to not be observed" is not a natural right Rights are granted through legislative processes. What is not a right today may be a right tomorrow. The "right to absolute privacy in all places at all times" is also not a natural right Is anybody asking for that? I haven't seen that anywhere. Can you provide a link?
- umvi 6y ago
  > Rights are granted through legislative processes. What is not a right today may be a right tomorrow. There's a difference between "natural rights" (rights that are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government) and what you describe. The type of right you describe is capricious and whimsical. GP was complaining that airport travelers don't have privacy. So it seems like people are asking for it. Can you name some places you believe right to privacy should not apply?
  - lm28469 6y ago
    > There's a difference between "natural rights" (rights that are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government) Do you think these rights come from god or something ? There are no rights that are independent to time, law, culture or government.
  - PeterisP 6y ago
    Privacy (at least some form of it) is generally considered one of the key "natural rights" that all people have. Both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ind...) and EU Convention of Human Rights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_8_of_the_European_Convention_on_Human_Rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_8_of_the_European_Conv...) include privacy as one of the unalienable human rights.
- nimajneb 6y ago
  Rights are enforced through legislative processes. Legislative processes can grant privilege, entitlement, and protection, but not a right.
mindslight 6y ago
However, the right to not be stalked is. Which is what is effectively happening when simple "observation" is scaled up into a network of surveillance cameras and surveillance databases following your location and activities around the clock. Running into someone you know and saying hello is socially acceptable [0]. Following someone around everywhere they go, waiting outside of their house, and writing down everything you see them doing is not. [0] It's socially encouraged, even. In case anyone has forgotten over the past several months.
- umvi 6y ago
  > Following someone around everywhere they go, waiting outside of their house, and writing down everything you see them doing is not. So you are saying private investigator is an illegal occupation?
  - mindslight 6y ago
    The standard used for the sentence you quoted was "socially acceptable". Legally, private investigators operate in a grey area, and private investigators know this. Regardless, lone private investigators are nowhere near the level of scale where it is happening to everyone at once.
    - umvi 6y ago
      Do you have evidence that the scale of this is as large as you say? If Walmart maintains facial recognition records, and so does Target, but they are kept in separate data vaults, that is not large scale. Each company is just making their own observations about their own property. If the US federal government tracks facial recognition in all stores and public spaces in all states, well that is large scale.
      - mindslight 6y ago
        In this instance, the "list of suspicious persons" is obviously some shared surveillance database, not just people who were previously kicked out of the Rose Bowl. In general, retailers share surveillance data with commercial surveillance bureaus, for example Retail Equation. Power always coalesces. Also "own property" is utterly fallacious. I'm pretty sure my face is my property. It feels like you're just grasping at various reductionist straws here.
ashtonkem 6y ago
The difference is a matter of scope. If I’m photographing a street in NYC and you’re in it, you have no right to complain. You’re in public, that’s how this goes. Now if follow you around NYC for a week and only photograph streets you’re on, you do have a right to complain. Now that’s stalking, something you can get a restraining order over. Facial recognition feels much more like the latter than the former.
blacksmith_tb 6y ago
I think the argument is quantity vs quality here. In past, we had no expectation of privacy in public places, so you might be seen or even photographed, but realistically that happened rarely. But if facial recognition could capture your whereabouts at all times in public, that's a significant change in the level of observation and tracking, especially if that data then belongs exclusively to someone else.
d4mi3n 6y ago
As with many things, I believe privacy is less of a binary issue and more of a scale between two extremes. I agree that with modern technology it would be difficult to guarantee or enforce absolute privacy in public spaces--everyone has a camera on them at all times these days! That said, I think the EU got it right with ideas like the right to be forgotten. Knowing you were at a protest or frequented some store can be problematic depending on how that data is used and correlated. Knowing these things is also dangerous if this data sticks around for a long time--who's to say the political climate a few years from now will be anything like today? Being able to look up every indiscretion somebody ever made can be a tactic for discrediting people or strong-arming them to do what you want. Cherry picking historical data about a person can make them look any way you want them to when presented to an audience of the public or your peers in court. The thing I can't figure out is how we can find some middle ground in an ecosystem where not everybody will be acting in good faith. It's a real source of concern that deserves consideration.
- umvi 6y ago
  > That said, I think the EU got it right with ideas like the right to be forgotten. Does RTBF extend to post-mortem privacy as well? I think RTBF should expire once a person has died at the very least. i.e. people like Harvey Weinstein might use RTBF to scrub their public image, but I want to know all the details after he has died. Otherwise you effectively have a permanent history-scrubbing tool, which is never good.
  - d4mi3n 6y ago
    That's a great point and another reason why it usually doesn't make sense to take privacy to an extreme. At the end of the day, privacy is a matter of private interest against (debatable) public good. It's nice for an individual to be able to start from a clean slate. It's not so great for society at large when such people abuse the system to do harm to others.
  - PeterisP 6y ago
    Privacy laws in general grant specific rights to people; and legally corpses aren't people and don't have the same rights. There tend to be some limitations for information about the deceased which are generally framed from the perspective of protecting the rights of their living relatives; e.g. false accusations that your deceased spouse did something horrific can be interpreted as an unjust attack on your reputation and could be grounds for you to sue.
vangelis 6y ago
It's the asymmetric nature of these things that I'm against. If you followed the developers around with a notebook and telephoto camera documenting their every move, you'd probably get picked up for stalking.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> The "right to not be observed" is not a natural right, nor should it be. “Natural rights” are nothing more than a fancy way of dressing up one’s subjective preference for the way things ought to be as a universal truth, saying “X is not a natural right” already includes the same meaning as adding “nor should it be”.
lm28469 6y ago
> a world where absolute perfect privacy is the 24/7 default (public and private), is a world devoid of meaningful interactions between humans and also a world where criminals flourish. That's an extremely naive take on the question. Technology knows no bound by itself, left uncheck it'll "progress" forever. If we continue like that, and granted it is technically possible, we'll end up in a Minority report style policing. If people don't rise against this bullshit there will be no coming back. AFAIk we had perfectly fine social interactions without facial recognition cameras at every corner or every streets, and giving up your privacy to fight "crime" is a ridiculous thing to do, it's the "think of the children" level of argumentation. Also, ask yourself who benefits from these things. They don't do that to make you safe or reduce crime, especially in the US, when you look at the history of these kind of laws you always find out that it was profiting private companies all along. I wouldn't be surprised if all of these are pushed by something like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_... https://ccrjustice.org/home/blog/2020/05/08/alec-s-corporate-control-our-government-life-threatening-especially-covid-era https://ccrjustice.org/home/blog/2020/05/08/alec-s-corporate... https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/What_is_ALEC%3F https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/What_is_ALEC%3F
- umvi 6y ago
  > If we continue like that, and granted it is technically possible, we'll end up in a Minority report style policing. Wouldn't that be a good thing? The world of Minority Report had a effective murder rate of 0%. > Also, ask yourself who benefits from these things. They don't do that to make you safe or reduce crime, especially in the US, when you look at the history of these kind of laws you always find out that it was profiting private companies all along. Ok, but if I run a business, why shouldn't I be able to monitor who comes in my store and auto-flag repeat shoplifting offenders?
  - lm28469 6y ago
    Well maybe in a perfect world with perfect laws and perfect people who don't abuse tech and laws. It's kind of when jews registered themselves as jews when emigrating to pre ww2 Germany, what wrong can it do am I right ? There are many anti shoplifting methods that won't slowly creep into knowing my location and thoughts 24/7 and potentially be used against me when _thought of Thursday June 11 2020_ or _person met on Thursday June 11_ is deemed retro actively illegal in 2037. The question isn't to know if it would be a good thing in a perfect world, but how easy and how far can you push it the other way and make it something completely nefarious. To me the pros are far out-weighted by the cons on this one.

catalogia 6y ago

There has been at least a temporarily reprieve; thanks to Covid-19 in the summer, it's now socially acceptable to walk around town wearing a mask and sunglasses.