Comment on Dumb glasses
gigastasio@sh.itjust.works 10 hours agoConsider the hammer analogy, which says that my right to swing a hammer ends where you begin.
My right to privacy doesn’t end simply because I venture out into public. If I decide to go out, and someone little secret camera sees and records me, and creates a file to the effect of, “This is gigastasio and he was seen crossing 5th and Spruce at 11:32 am today, here’s who he was with and everything known about them available on social media, news reports, and more,” freely accessible to another private citizen with no need for that information, that’s antithetical to the value of respecting and protecting our privacy.
You would not walk up to me, ask my name, and begin searching me while I stood there and watched. If you did I would either ignore you or lie to you, which would be the proper response. If that behavior is wrong, so is secretly collecting someone’s identity, whereabouts, associations and other info. And there are very sound counterarguments against the “nothing to hide” stance that can be better articulated by others than I can do at the moment.
Rather than taking the attitude of “there’s already public surveillance, so more is okay,” I would instead say there’s already surveillance, so resist the temptation to add even more and work to dismantle what currently exists.
lumen@feddit.nl 10 hours ago
I don’t like surveillance either, but as it currently stands, you have no expectation of privacy in public.
gigastasio@sh.itjust.works 10 hours ago
I think it would be necessary. And if anyone has a problem with it let them bring legal challenges. In fact, let’s run arguments for and against identity and information harvesting by private citizens against private citizens through the courts and see what shakes out. Seeing as how your position is based on what’s legal as opposed to what’s ethical, I bet you’d be in favor of that.
lumen@feddit.nl 10 hours ago
It’s not strange to want a line drawn somewhere regarding public photography. But I just don’t see how that line ever can be drawn in a fair way.
gigastasio@sh.itjust.works 9 hours ago
An important distinction that I don’t want to get lost in our discussion is that this isn’t just a camera. It’s a device designed to provide a user with someone’s identity and, by extension, available information about the target without their knowledge or consent. I can instantly think of half a dozen ways that can be used to bring harm to others, some of which meet the legal standards for harassment.
So taking someone’s picture, and using facial recognition to acquire their identity and entire digital footprint for unspecified use by another private citizen, all in secret…line seems awfully clear to me.