[contingencies]

I remain unconvinced. Fundamentally, packets and physicalia are apples and oranges.

China, Hong Kong, Singapore, the UK, and an increasing number of cities worldwide already have massive video surveillance networks allied to local law enforcement, traffic management, and other functions. Adding another stage of image processing would help to leverage and extract actionable data from those (the classic problem of CCTV is that nobody watches it) ... with probably very little additional outlay compared to existing investment.

I can't see anything stopping this commercial progression, in fact I see it as inevitable unless the citizenry can somehow curb their politicians. Good luck with that...