[jdsnape]

I asked because it wasn’t blindingly obvious, and I genuinely want to understand.

Taking the traffic enforcement then - we’re talking about a dangerous piece of machinery that you’re allowed to operate in a public place under certain conditions in order to reduce the risk to others. One of those conditions is speed. It seems blindingly obvious to me that if a society agrees those conditions it should also enforce them?

[FridayoLeary]

Yes but speed cameras quickly turn into a revenue source for greedy councils. It's hard to tell how much they actually care about speeding offences and doing what they think they can get away with.

As a general rule these things start with sincere intentions but often devolve into cynical exploitation. So if you weigh the benefits of speed cameras against the suffering they cause i think you would find they aren't a good thing.

Getting to your original question i think many people don't trust that their face and fingerprint scans will be used in a way that would be in the publics interest. Its more likely that the authorities would find a way to use that data against you.

[gregjor]

How exactly do you weigh the “suffering” — I would call it inconvenience or annoyance — of traffic fines against bodily harm caused by dangerous drivers? A fine versus a hospital stay or worse?

[jjav]

> Yes but speed cameras quickly turn into a revenue source for greedy councils.

This has been widely documented for red light cameras. Red light cameras are politically much easier because approximately nobody thinks blatantly running red light is ever acceptable (vs. speed limits which have a wide range of debate on what the correct number should be).

So, towns install red light cameras. And initially, it's good! Then when the town gets used to the revenue stream, they want more money. How to get more? They shorten the yellow light more and more and more so they can artificially increase the number of people "running the red light". What started as a good plan to punish people who blatantly run the light, becomes a gotcha trick programmed to maximize revenue at the cost of safety (rear end accidents increase substantially after people become trained to panic brake at yellow lights due to the excessively short time).