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Comment by 1659447091 | Hacker News Reader

> and no one will care because it already happens to them at the airport, so why make a fuss about it at the grocery store or on a public sidewalk.

You may be overestimating how many unique/different people travel through airports, especially more than once or twice to notice the tracking. People who travel once or twice total in their life by air, (are usually easy to spot), far more concerned with getting through a confusing hectic situation then noticing or even knowing that using facial recognition is new and not simply a special thing (because 9/11). And, the majority of Americans have travelled to zero or one country, last time I saw numbers on it. That country is usually Mexico or Canada where they drive (or walk).

I think once it starts trying to hit close to home where people have a routine and are not as stressed by a new situation and have the bandwidth to--at a minimum--take a pause, will ask questions about what is going on.

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I’m thinking it will only be a matter of time before (if it’s not already the case) that things like self-checkout systems that do HQ faces level video for facial recognition and identification, akin to any number of dystopian novels/movies where some protagonist cannot move around without face covering because there are scanners, or even something like Idiocracy where the public is so conditioned that they immediately report someone who does not obey the government regime’s requirement to have some barcode.

Was in Canada two years ago to snowboard. They were taking everybody's pictures as they were going through customs. I remember going to the counter with my Mom and the guy asked us what we would be doing and I before I even answered he waved me through. My Mom looked at me and said, "We obviously didn't fit the profile they're looking for."

You're right about just trying to get through the process. I was the only one in our family who was like, "No idea why they were taking pictures of everybody when they just whisked us through customs." My Dad snapped that it was because of 9/11 and we weren't lawbreakers so just deal with it.

The comment was interesting since my Dad worked for Lockheed Martin for 30 years and used to travel constantly. He mentioned the idea of a "high trust society" is now gone forever and facial recognition and other technologies are now necessary to give that trust back to the general public so they can feel safe with air travel.

It’s pretty much too late by the time that happens. People’s general indifference regarding privacy never ceases to amaze me, we really put up no fight whatsoever

I wonder if there isn't a case to be made for some really bad faith projects as demonstrators for just how creepy this shit is.

Privacy advocacy orgs should have contests for tracking people using publicaly available video feeds, or something of the sort.

Let people search their license plate to see how easy it is to track all of your movements. Maybe put up a few high res webcams in the vicinity of a legislature building for maximum effect.

I don't have much hope in that approach. It might get some attention and trend for a day/week or so, but nothing happens and people move on to the next thing and the camera's remain

Also, practically, the advocacy groups would need to get access to the surveillance feeds or deploy their own hardware - which I just don't see happening

I've used this as a bit of a thought experiment, and also think it may do more harm than good--but a part of me wonders if it may be just thing to create change. A non-profit that works a bit like haveibeenpwned.com but with data sold by data brokers that anyone can look up, with corresponding source attribution. At one point, long ago I was of the idea that all data should be public/exposed or none of it (this ship already sailed with data brokers and such. Don't know how it could be undone).

The problem I keep running into is a real world take on the Trolley problem[0].

Do you publicly publish all data, which:

1. Reduces its sellable value

2. Makes people aware of how much they are being tracked and profiled

3. Gives back a small bit of agency over ones data by knowing where to send delete/remove request to make data brokers honour local laws

However, doing so would also:

1. Give easy access to abuse victim data, putting them in further harm

2. Give actual stalkers an easier path to their targets

3. Other harm that I can not fathom at this point in time

I don't know the answer, maybe mask the address part, or do like Strava and set a blocking geo fence around home/work addresses. For location tracking keep it months behind and remove/mask anything remotely related to health services (mental and physical).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

I’d prefer the passive data never existed, it’s actively collected and that activity can be banned. Meaning, when I’m on strava I’m actively collecting data and have opted in to that. But, if I’m jogging, I didn’t opt in to the cameras on every pole using facial recognition to triangulate my location (my face + camera location = my location) and so I think this is a bit of an overreach.

Just like everyone though, I’m just going to gripe here and move on with my life as the mass surveillance infrastructure rollout proceeds

But, will they even realize when/where they're being surveilled?

Out of sight, out of mind. If there isn't a large video camera tracking them as they move across a shop or down the street, I'm not sure many people will even notice.

Is there a tipping point where familiarity leads to normalization, or does it instead give people the clarity to resist?

Also there's the possibility people aren't particularly bothered by it as long as it gets used for reasonable purposes, to catch the bad guys. My main annoyance with surveillance in London is it wasn't good enough to catch the bastards who snatched my phone.

From a practical point of view to avoid getting caught if you look at the phone snatchers, they wear hoodies, balaclava type cycle masks and generic black tracksuit like clothing. If you look at the photos of the NYC shooter he slipped up in not wearing a balaclava type mask and in having distinctive clothing and backpack.

> My main annoyance with surveillance in London is it wasn't good enough to catch the bastards

Well that’s the norm with all surveillance: it pretty much never helps you and might hurt you, regardless of the promises. Obviously after decades of constant spying, men are still getting ads intended for women and vice versa, and yet micro targeting is changing election outcomes. Banks and governments watch every single transaction, but it doesn’t reduce the administrative burden of compliance for tax paperwork. Airport experiences are worse than ever and at greater expense, but anyone with a few brain cells to rub together knows that it’s just security theater. Even more basically.. google reads all your email and searching for that exact phrase you know you read or wrote just a few weeks ago somehow turns up zero results.

This will all just get worse, because as the amount of data collected increases, everyone can be suspected of something just because of coincidence. Your insurance company is getting the memo about your poor diet or know that you’re driving too fast, and just won’t bother to find out about your healthy exercise regimen or that your job is driving an ambulance! To be presumed innocent you’ll need to opt into more data collection or disclosures of course, that’s the way it goes, but this only makes things worse because the extra data is just more stuff that can be used in a case against you.

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