[qppo]

When I was in college Fortinet pitched a capstone project for an automated doorman that tracked passersby, delivery people, residents, etc using cameras posted at doors.

We asked why they couldn't use other biometrics which were much more established at the time (eg fingerprint scanners at the doorway), they said because other biometrics required consent. They wanted to track people without their knowing or agreement.

When asked about the ethics they said something along the lines of "this is what our customers are asking for."

Point being you don't need a privacy policy when you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the first place. They can take pictures of you, store them in a database, sell them if they want. You don't have a right to be forgotten. And there are people that don't see anything wrong with that.

[donmcronald]

The tech capabilities have changed so much that I'd say it's closer to being surveilled than observed in a public place. Compare it to security cameras where you're recorded almost everywhere, but the video is relatively transient and often only reviewed / saved if a crime or disturbance occurs.

That's a lot different than companies tracking me via facial recognition, storing the data in databases that never get deleted, and combining it with behavioral data. It's going to lead to all kind of abuse. We'll end up with many variants of redlining, but digital.

What happens when that type of data is collected for today's youth and 20 years from now employers start using it to screen job applicants? What if the machine learning algorithms can't distinguish between correlation and causality? Does the "profile" of a successful person become someone from a rich neighborhood as a result of naive correlation?

I'm sure it'll be amazing for wealthy people and terrible for poor people. If I'm rich and walk into a mall, I get treated like a VIP. If I'm poor, maybe the doors don't even open.