Recording people in public spaces is generally legal. Should it be unlawful to record your front porch? That'd implicate Ring and a whole bunch of other products. How about setting up a camera on your windowsill pointing out towards the street?
None of this stuff is settled. It's always in court, and audio and video are frequently treated completely differently from each other.
What about setting up a camera on your roof aimed at your neighbor's bedroom window, and livestreaming it online? What about secretly recording the conversation that you're having with someone in a restaurant? What about recording the comings and goings of the people who enter or leave a gay bar, or a mosque?
One issue I have with the Flock cameras installed in my city is that they are installed on public land (right next to the road) and paid for with tax dollars.
That's what laws are for, for us to decide if actions that are technically possible should be legally possible. Many products exist because of leaks in existing laws around privacy; maybe we tighten those laws up? That's the point of the discussion. In this case, a private company is creating a dystopian dragnet of personal travel information that is a function of the population travel volume that its devices cover.
If the right to privacy arrived at from this discussion kills a product line or a business, oh well. Human rights > profits, broadly speaking.
Regulation to protect privacy is the only solution. Otherwise, the market will only accelerate the exploitation of your personal data in the pursuit of maximum profit.
You're asking the right questions. Welcome to developing an awareness of the sprawling surveillance industry!
In short there are vanishingly few privacy laws in the US, and the few that do exist are mostly undermined by fake consent in EULA/TOS documents-that-nobody-reads. Even when a company somehow does manage to run aground of some law, they generally just end up with financial slap on the wrist while keeping their ill gotten data gains.
The best time to push for meaningful privacy legislation was over the past 40 years when all of these surveillance databases were being built out. But the second best time is now, especially as more people gain awareness of how pervasive and invasive this totalitarian industry has become. The records being created and kept by this industry would make a dyed in the wool Stasi agent blush, and Americans need to start rejecting this fallacious narrative that things that are reasonable for individuals to do at a small bespoke passing scale remain legitimate when scaled up to industrial levels.
Manuel_D|1 year ago
pessimizer|1 year ago
What about setting up a camera on your roof aimed at your neighbor's bedroom window, and livestreaming it online? What about secretly recording the conversation that you're having with someone in a restaurant? What about recording the comings and goings of the people who enter or leave a gay bar, or a mosque?
tkems|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
toomuchtodo|1 year ago
If the right to privacy arrived at from this discussion kills a product line or a business, oh well. Human rights > profits, broadly speaking.
"Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."
jorvi|1 year ago
It’s the difference between recording and monitoring. You’re allowed to record in a public space, but you’re not allowed to monitor it.
BobaFloutist|1 year ago
kibwen|1 year ago
tevon|1 year ago
Teever|1 year ago
Any time someone is doing something to you that you don't like and it's legal just do it back to them twice as much, and publically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
Are a very useful combination.
mindslight|1 year ago
In short there are vanishingly few privacy laws in the US, and the few that do exist are mostly undermined by fake consent in EULA/TOS documents-that-nobody-reads. Even when a company somehow does manage to run aground of some law, they generally just end up with financial slap on the wrist while keeping their ill gotten data gains.
The best time to push for meaningful privacy legislation was over the past 40 years when all of these surveillance databases were being built out. But the second best time is now, especially as more people gain awareness of how pervasive and invasive this totalitarian industry has become. The records being created and kept by this industry would make a dyed in the wool Stasi agent blush, and Americans need to start rejecting this fallacious narrative that things that are reasonable for individuals to do at a small bespoke passing scale remain legitimate when scaled up to industrial levels.