[riversflow]

> This is much like legislation around traditional weapons.

The problem with that comparison is that it would be very obvious and noteworthy if Nestle started to drop bombs or hired mercenaries to prey on villages who tried to fight their abusive water practices, or whatever analogous weapons fiction you can imagine to Big Tech abusing their data and resources for invasive spying. People would die and/or be injured, likely property would be destroyed--these are extremely tangible things.

Big tech could be using facial recognition for years and fly under the radar. Privacy is essentially intangible.

[repelsteeltje]

That's a very good point.

I guess that difference stems from the novelty of privacy invasion "weapons". A bit like attempting to threaten a Roman soldier by pointing a machine gun. It takes time, probably a couple of centuries to build up experience with surveillance to fully grasp the ramifications.

But we're also no longer at the unknown-unknown point; we understand that there might be serious problems unless we dial down the pace at which we allow data hoarding.

At least some privacy would be preserved if there was a law that said "if you have a legit reason to track people using facial recognition, you must throw away all inferred information after 1 hour". Or some other arbitrary limit. Or a law saying you're liable if your data were ever to leak. Or some other obstacle.