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Comment by rl3 | Hacker News Reader

I suppose the good news is that 3D point cloud data in context of a public setting wouldn't be much more invasive than the already-pervasive video surveillance we have today.

The bad news is as you say: having mapping data of your private residence siphoned off by third parties, be it government or private industry.

I would say I'm as excited as I am worried about the potential for this technology. That said, I think the privacy implications are very similar to Kinect, which is already here. The only difference perhaps being mobility.

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Did HN react to the Kinect or Kinect 2 this way? It seems like there's a lot of burden put on Google to not do stuff that could be creepy even though that's all they do.

I can't comment on "HN's reaction" because I don't tend to put much stock in trying to draw a consensus from HN.

However, my recollection is that there was a reasonably vocal reaction to the privacy implications of Xbox One / Kinect 2 in gaming and tech media, although they mostly related to the timing of the first Snowden leaks. This article is a pretty good example of the media hype around it: http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/16/4526770/will-the-nsa-use-t... .

I think the "always-on" nature was more criticized than the point-cloud/time-of-flight abilities of the camera, but pushback against more and more ways to collect data attached to equipment made by big tech corporations isn't exclusive to Google.

I suppose the obvious answer is "Because they don't need to mine your data - they already got your money."

If you don't want to show something in the map you yourself create of your own home, then just don't include it in the map.

Having point cloud data of your home in general is a complete non-issue, I'm sure most of the time the government already has floor plan data for your home.

I am fine with the government having my floor plans for administrative, safety and regulatory issues. I am not fine with private, data-mining, advertising companies having up-to-date point clouds and imagery of my home.

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