Well I was thinking there is no DB for them to draw from because it was a private run camera, not because the facial recognition DB doesn't exist (because technically it does exist for anyone who has ever got a biometric passport in Europe so you don't have to go through old style passport checks).

Remember, at that "gas station", you were on private property. Do you want the government telling you what cameras you can have on your property? How do you know the other cars around you didn't have dash-cams with OCR?

If I pin a name tag to myself, I won't get all up in arms if someone takes a picture of me and I certainly won't make the distinction if their camera is equipped with OCR software or not. If I don't want that information out there, I won't put it out there. If I am regulated to put it out there, then that's that really.

There may have been someone writing everyone license plate down too, I wouldn't care (but that's me). If I saw them trying to break into my car to get my license or registration, then that is a different matter altogether.