I don’t understand why I shouldn’t be able to make an adult decision about taking risks with my own personal data.
Allowing a free-for-all in all new tech that has clearly defined privacy issues at scale can cause a lot of runaway problems. A society who tries their best to reduce harm caused by bad actors using wild new technology that has huge privacy implications is a reasonable society to me.
Automated detection of your face matters to the rest of society, too. It's not just your privacy that is affected, it is other people's too.
Computers aren't like humans. They have the ability to permanently and irreversibly forget certain information, and they always do exactly what they're programmed to. A local, on-device facial recognition programmed to immediately discard information on unrecognized faces has exactly zero privacy impact. (See also: smart speakers listening for a hotword.)
(See also: smart speakers listening for a hotword.)
Another problem is that the risk of abuse is too great, even if the accuracy was flawless.
If the accuracy were flawless then there would be zero false positives, and the aforementioned issue wouldn't exist at all.
Oh, and it is hardly the only issue.
This just isn't true, though. Hotword detection fails frequently for me with Siri, Google Home, and Alexa. I haven't tried the others. They all pick up unrelated sounds and record them as if the hotword was spoken when it definitely was not. Not even a similar sounding set of words.
There are absolutely privacy implications for technology that does automated scanning and recognition of its environment. They are buggy, as all programs are, and they are hackable, as all programs are.
Being both potentially buggy, potentially hackable, and constantly alert and running algorithms on their environment is absolutely a valid and real privacy concern.
Consent should not be assumed and should be revokable if ever given. Yes means yes -- everything else means no.
May be London wants to take a different approach than Finland. That should be fine. Let each countries figure out what works for them.
-It had been a peaceful night in Europe where all the women are strong, the men are good looking, and the children are above average. Martin woke up on his EU regulated bed and looked through his EU regulated window. This night, Martin had slept like a baby thanks to the 109 EU regulations concerning pillows, the 5 EU regulations concerning pillow cases, and the 50 EU laws regulating duvets and sheets. Martin went to brush his teeth with his toothbrush regulated by 31 EU laws.
After that, our EU-regulated man went to his EU regulated kitchen to grab a Class 1 EU regulated apple. For the benefit of society, the EU had defined what a “class 1” fruit actually is: to class a "Red Variety" apple as "class 1" then 50% of its surface must be red. To class a "Mixed red coloring variety" of apple as a "class 1" apple 33% of its surface must be red, and so it goes for the 3 quality classes and 287 individually named apple varieties. Martin ate fruits and vegetables because the government told him it is the right thing to do. He switched the TV on and listened to the “eat five fruits and vegetables” government ad with attention. Martin’s apple was not very tasty, but at least it was controlled by a European central authority. “Isn’t that great,” thought Martin, “the EU takes care of our food. We now can eat only nice and safe products!” Martin is paying 40% more for his food because of the EU’s highly protectionist agricultural policies, but it is the price one has to pay for civilization.
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The states themselves also retain substantial powers. They can block a Constitutional amendment or call a Constitutional convention, they can appeal to courts with 250 years of common law precedent backing them up, etc. There is much more clarity in the American system.
The EU doesn't work the same way.