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This is my favourite question! I don't think the stuff you described is any problem legally; lidar scan data and pictures from public places, not published, ke
by xyzzy123 6y ago
This is my favourite question! I don't think the stuff you described is any problem legally; lidar scan data and pictures from public places, not published, kept for a legitimate purpose (vehicle safety and training) should be fine.
But it's not a big step to turn these things into continuous scanners of the real world. Now every car can be a Street View car.
You could have them check parking lot occupancy, see whether storefronts look busy, scan license plates, measure foot traffic, do recognition on pedestrians and cars, enable real-time-ish "look around" in maps, scan for wifi networks or other signals, report weather conditions, and just generally act as massive mobile data collection network. They can bring the kind of invasive surveillance we have on the Internet right to your doorstep. There is a huge amount of money to be made.
The data might end up being more profitable than the rides.
I don't think there are any laws preventing any of this right now. We're going to need regulation eventually.
- marshmallow_12 6y agoi think it would save a lot of headaches if legislation was drawn up today. it's not as if surveillance isn't possible already and doesn't happen. its an issue that's ripe for legislation. prevention is the best cure.
- f7rgehdu 6y agoSolid disagree. Digital privacy has devolved into a luddite movement for privileged people who have nothing better to do than convince the less privileged that they'd be better off dealing with actual crime than allowing the nebulously constructed idea of their digital privacy to be violated.
- marshmallow_12 6y agothere is some merit to your argument, by giving up some privacy we have created huge amounts of wealth for ourselves. But we can still fear a dystopian reality where ai and cameras will be used to create files on everyone.
- etc-hosts 6y agoThere's nothing wrong with protecting the privacy rights of individuals when the largest companies in the world are running robot cameras down all of our streets.
- dillondoyle 6y agoIn person retail attribution and re-marketing! the next billion dollar ad tech startup. lol. Though maybe if Google does it themselves they could actually make it work.
- nradov 6y agoI expect there will be political and law enforcement pressure to use those autonomous vehicles to scan for "Amber Alert" license plates.
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoThe police are gonna be real annoyed when someone figures out how to make an OBD2 dongle or app that automates the "report/confirm a cop" portion of Waze