How can you be sure they will respect privacy? That's the $10,000 question here.

No one can be sure, but if they only place these cameras in public locations and have them facing public areas, then there should be no expectation of privacy to begin with.

If they have them facing private areas and use them to record those privately owned areas, then that's another issue.

There's a vast difference between permanent blanket surveillance of a public location and incidental witnessing of events in a public location.

It's like the availability of mugshots. Decades ago, they were also public documents, so in that sense nothing has changed. But now that they are so much more accessible, vile businesses now retrieve mugshots in bulk and publish them online in order to shake down people who have been arrested.

What happens when you combine these cameras with facial recognition technology?

Sure, these are public places, but does that justify the intrusiveness of a police force, or other government organization, tracking your every public movement? This is the definition of a surveillance state. What happens when you piss off the wrong person with access to this data? What happens when your business interest conflicts with those of someone with access to this data? What if you want to run for office, and you've been caught doing something legal, but socially unacceptable?

It's already happening in China[1]. No thank you. This is means of population subversion and control. I'd much rather risk being the victim of an illegal crime.

1.https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-all-seeing-surveillance-sta...

That’s what they said about dragnet internet surveillance, too.

Except they didn't say anything until provoked, and even then they lied.