But joking aside, in most places there are checks and balances between privacy impact and benefit. We all accept that some government agencies know some of our data, because the net benefit to society is bigger than the loss of privacy. And you would normally try to do such things in the least invasive way possible while achieving the benefit.
Where you go wrong in your passenger rant, is in assuming there is a big safety benefit in more recording of pilots. There were a total of 2 fatalities on US airlines in the last 10 years [1], while billions of passengers were transported. The safety record of airline transport is stellar, without more recording. So yes, I believe it is very reasonable to consider what is and isn't acceptable to the crew being recorded.
[1] https://www.airlines.org/dataset/safety-record-of-u-s-air-ca...
If ICAO can require keeping 25 hours why should a crew get to choose 2?
The recording should anyway only be retrieved under specific conditions and in a controlled environment.
In this specific case the longer recording duration may have actually aided the investigation and thus further improve airline safety.
There is also more nuance to the debate around the 25 hours change. Like you say it should only be used under specific conditions and in a controlled environment, but in the US unfortunately recordings have been leaked and have been used for disciplinary purposes instead of a blame-less investigation for safety.
Europe has had rules for 25 hour recording since 2021, as far as I know without any opposition. But European recordings have also not been misused before.
- They need to work well together, and the better rapport they have with each other the better they're likely to perform in an actual incident. Regular interaction on the job is a part of that.
- They work a job that is often remarkably boring for much of the time. Drowsiness setting in is a real concern - a degree of social interaction is good at both keeping people engaged, and at helping them gauge how alert the other crew members are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterile_flight_deck_rule
I agree that the crew should feel free to chat. And when there is an accident, they should expect that the recordings are kept.
It's also unfathomably unreasonable to call for storage of all voice recordings of the flight deck in perpetuity. That's ridiculous and is privacy invading. If you want to improve the state of this industry, you are looking in the wrong place.