Hacker News Reader

Comment by brna-2 | Hacker News Reader

Wow, such a nice idea with the purple lanyard it would be great to have something like this in general, walking down the streets someone films you and them or even YT or viewers to scan/flag the videos in question. I guess EU could put forth such regulation - no biggie. Maybe we could also create a framework on existing legislation - design a lanyard, put a QR on it leading to a "I do not consent" site. Advertise it a bit and I'm sure it would be newsworthy, at-least in EU, not sure about the rest of the world.

View on HN

I think even better option is some type of public opt-in. Maybe purple or green screen lanyard. Publishing material of anyone without one would not be allowed.

Doesn't seem too big ask to edit out anyone who has not opted-in. Especially in age of AI that should make it trivial.

Sorry, but why even care about this? Is it an invasion of your privacy if strangers see you walking down the street? If no, how is strangers seeing you walking down the street in the background of some youtube video a privacy violation??

It's the same reason why people are okay being carded, but not okay with submitting their ID digitally to be recorded and retained forever.

Meeting people in public has an obvious, logical bound. Being recorded does not. When you pass by someone in public, you're one of a thousand - passers-by see you once and then never again, they don't permanently remember you or what you did, no one but the people who know you care in the slightest.

When you get recorded, the data now exists forever, backed up in several places and basically impossible to get rid of. Most importantly, you can't ever know what will happen to this data in the future once it's there. Unlike meeting people in public, the internet doesn't forget. If in 20 years, someone puts up a service that let people upload a picture of your face and have it return a dossier with every bit of video you've ever appeared in, you have no recourse or say in the matter. It's "public data" after all, right? Basically equivalent to just being in the public!

> no one but the people who know you care in the slightest

> someone puts up a service that let people upload a picture of your face and have it return a dossier with every bit of video you've ever appeared in

Okay and why exactly would anybody be interested in that? Sounds like a pointless hypothetical

> Okay and why exactly would anybody be interested in that? Sounds like a pointless hypothetical

"Okay, so this new attack vector that hasn't existed before will appear, but maybe no one will ever want to use it" isn't a great argument.

I'm not sure how to explain it better that total aggregation of all data that's ever existed on you into one convenient blob is dangerous. Even answering your direct question is trivial: imagine that you break up with someone and they use your public data to stalk you. Or you have a conflict with your relatives, who can then use that data to see where you might be and what you might be up to.

But the obvious further implications of systems like those are second-, third-, fourth-order processing. So, we live in a society where you can look people up by their photos. Up next, the videos they appeared in will be location-tagged, with other services putting two and two together and selling everyone's location data, just put a photo in and you get a convenient timeline. Other services may sell information on what people and groups you were seen associating with. These are all very convenient things to offer - now, police investigations go a lot easier, breaking up inconvenient groups is less troublesome, employers and landlords can screen you for 'undesirable' qualities before ever seeing you. Lots of possibilities, lots of people who would love to use that.

> I guess EU could put forth such regulation - no biggie

Yes! Another EU regulation will solve this right quick.

Well, actually this could be just a means of letting people know your preference without direct communication. Maybe it could fall under existing GDPR regulation, as an extended part about a public "non consent" marker.

How would you solve the problem in large scale, low effort way?

> How would you solve the problem in large scale, low effort way?

The problem is solved in a large scale low effort way (in many places)! If you are in public you can be legally filmed.

- I was at public park. There was an event. I remember there was a warning/poster/whatever - this place features XYZ and is being photographed. If you do not like, do not participate or stand here or something along the lines.

- When kids came to my workplace as part of educational program to show how people work - we gave them out papers, adults had to give approval that their child will be photographed and photo shared on social network. If any would opt out, we would just photograph without him. I think the sole purpose of that event was to photograph on some background with national flag or something and just publish it online.

Sometimes it is ridiculous, but still this thing works like this: the school or kindergarten wants class photo: please sign here that you consent. Basically this photo is not public but limited to families for all the children that attend that class. So seems kind of too much, but ok, can live with that.

I live in EU

Yes that all does seem like too much.

Great idea, and soon there will be a "I accept to be recorded in public" button you need to press before you're let out of your house.

Ah yes, identifying people with special items has always worked extremely well to protect freedoms.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com