Rental leases are contracts of adhesion. Consent to facial recognition will be added to the boiler plate text. If tenants want to negotiate, they’ll be told that the contract is just a standard form that can’t change.
One of the biggest problems with rental contracts is that the person who is counter-signing the contract on behalf of the property owner often doesn't have the authority within the organization to negotiate, only the owner does, but you have no opportunity as a tenant to speak to them. The manager of most apartment complexes is a low-mid paying role that basically exists to say "no" a whole lot and be a scapegoat for the choices/decisions of the owners. This is even /more true/ with corporate-owned apartments. When you combine this with the systems used to effectively illegally price fix via collusion with other landlords (although somehow this is never prosecuted), it becomes an untenable system for renters who have essentially no legal recourse.
Ironically, the more expensive the apartment rent, the less likely you are to put up with these things because the owners know that their tenants can afford to sue them and are likely educated and know their rights. It's primarily lower rent locations where abuses occur en masse. In order for a contract to be enforceable it must allow for negotiation and must provide consideration for both parties. But there's a huge difference between a contract being legally enforceable and upheld by a court vs a contract you must follow because you have no means to legally challenge it. Contracts of adhesion are very rarely fully enforceable, because they often do not include consideration and may be unconscionable. As an example, you are not allowed to contractually sign away your civil rights in most jurisdictions, but many rental contracts include clauses that effectively have you do so.
It's that they bought a particular iot hardware package from some company like Yardi or Realpage for half a million, installed that in every apartment, and since they're using the management software from those same companies they have little ability (or frankly, desire) to exempt the one jackass who demands that from that lease clause, when they don't even know how to turn off the facial recognition for the one customer.
You talk as if it's part of some sinister plan, when it's really someone making $19/hr at the front office who is bad at the software that their business uses to manage said business. Besides, everyone complains when they have to dig their phone out of their pocket every time they want to open up a gate or door to the building, when it could just unlock itself when it sees them coming (it's not as if there are going to be many apartment buildings relying on brass keys here in 10 years).
This is apathy, trends, and convenience. Nothing more.
Then you have several layers of products (software titles in this case) being stacked one on top of another, until the renter isn't even the consumer of the product.
Virtually none of these places are using anything that allows them to one-off a lease for a grouchy asshole. But if renters really demanded that and wanted to pay for it, I guess there could be an onsite lawyer willing and able to vet those modifications and put the lease through. But in a day and age where every whiny Starbucks barista complains that they can't afford the 4000sqft studio apartment of their dreams, I doubt they want to pay the extra premium that would result from individualized lease contracts.
It's the banality of "you're not important enough to spend the time on". No one's being loaded into cattle cars.
I mean, if this is the kind of apartment that requires an app, and showing your face at the door, to enter, you'd figure it out