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Comment by toomanybeersies | Hacker News Reader

How is selling to law enforcement any worse than selling facial recognition tech to companies that are also use it to invade my privacy and use the technology to try and squeeze money out of me?

Where do you draw the line on ethical usage?

In my mind, if you're concerned about the ethics of facial recognition tech, you shouldn't be working in that field at all. It's fundamentally anti-privacy.

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> Where do you draw the line on ethical usage?

One can put me in a box. The other one can’t.

Say the government doesn't have it. They can just ask/force/coerce/pressure the tech company that does for your data. Or steal it from them.

But it’s more difficult.

Is it? I don't think it would be. In fact, extortion and coercion are fairly easy because there are no rules (this I can attest to from both sides of the equation). The easiest weakness to exploit is always going to be the humans involved, especially in a legitimate business. The only true way to protect data like this is to have it not exist in the first place. Once the data is created - forget it, you might as well assume if Big Bro really wants it, they're going to get it -- because they will, if they don't already have it. It's not a case of if, but when.

Indeed, and there are a number of tech companies who have fought back against those things (I can think of notable examples where Apple and Google have pushed back against LE/government pressure/attack), and the ubiquity of suing the government to not disclose information compelled by an NSL suggests they aren't the only ones.

That's not to say that that's a perfect situation, but (if your threat model is the government) a government which has to take data from unwilling companies is weaker than one that need not do so, because they have the capability to collect the data themselves.

Anything goes, so long as they don't put you in a box? That's very permissive of you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

That was literally his whole argument.

One of them is constrained by federal and state constitutions. The other is not.

One is constrained by laws and the courts and the cops and civil society. The other has a monopoly on violence.

I’m not saying one side is good and the other is not. But if we’re drawing lines, the side that can punch me is the one I’m more scared of.

>One can put me in a box. The other one can’t.

Uber put someone in a box in Phoenix recently.

Companies don't have guns and prisons. Invading your privacy is a little different than being shot or thrown in jail.

"How is selling to law enforcement any worse than selling facial recognition tech to...?" is the template of whataboutism. Start somewhere. Go ahead and criticize where they started, but do so by telling us what you think will be more effective start.

Otherwise the message is "don't oppose the surveillance state."

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