It isn't what they think they do, but it very much is what they do.
Now tell me how uploading things to such a database is not a willed action.
I agree with you that there is the possibility of someone else taking such images of you and everyone around you, through surveillance cameras or whatever, but for something of the scale shown in this article you'd still need quite an effort to create such a database without the help from the people themselves, especially if you want to link it to other personal information.
Because people don't own their own clouds, or have privatized social networks, they are forced to upload things into databases that others control. Who controls the privacy defaults typically have the most control over where the data flows thereafter. And it's all out of the user's hands; they weren't given a choice, not a real one, because the incentives for the system lead you to accept the lack of control, or spend your life neurotically trying to keep a lid on everything, or live as a technological recluse. There's no other way to live today.