The purpose of a law designed in the interest of individual privacy, yes, but at least in America companies get a huge amount of say on what gets passed because they vote with their profits. The reality is that most of the laws are bad because they're considerate of private profit accumulation when, in reality, that profit directly harms the privacy of individuals. We continue to pretend as a society that these two desires can be reconciled.

I have no problem if a company performs facial recognition on me as long as I give them permission and it is used for specific purposes. Why should the government interfere with my ability to decide how images of my face are used?

Why should a company be allowed to perform wide scale facial recognition, analysis, and use as its training data the images of people who never consented to that use just so that it can determine whether the face it has in front of it is your face that you gave them consent to use?

Why are people uploading photos of others who never gave their consent to have their image online in the first place?

That's a good question. Maybe we should focus on prosecuting everyone who publishes photos of others without their consent? Or not. But that's a question that's completely unrelated to the question of consenting to facial recognition.

Disrespect? Ignorance? They're huge fans of surveillance capitalism? The more GDPR rules and further privacy regulations such as this help prevent this practice, the better.

Consent should not be assumed and should be revokable if ever given. Yes means yes -- everything else means no.

because companies are lying to you about how your data is being used

So have the government explain the risks of sharing personal data with corporations and then punish companies after the fact rather than preemptively.

I don’t understand why I shouldn’t be able to make an adult decision about taking risks with my own personal data.

Just like with a lot of things we have rules against, it's not just your personal data. Encoded in photos of you is data about your family, too. And in public, your surroundings, people nearby you, your location history, etc is all in the realm of these photo systems. There is more data in your photo than just you - this is a societal safety issue.

Allowing a free-for-all in all new tech that has clearly defined privacy issues at scale can cause a lot of runaway problems. A society who tries their best to reduce harm caused by bad actors using wild new technology that has huge privacy implications is a reasonable society to me.

Automated detection of your face matters to the rest of society, too. It's not just your privacy that is affected, it is other people's too.

A society that issues blanket bans on new technologies instead of specific problem behaviors is one that ends up falling behind

Then make lying about it illegal, not the technology itself.

How can a company know that you have given them consent before they perform the facial recognition?

Do the facial recognition, then throw out that data if it turns out the face in question isn't in the whitelist of consenting users.

Computers aren't like humans. They have the ability to permanently and irreversibly forget certain information, and they always do exactly what they're programmed to. A local, on-device facial recognition programmed to immediately discard information on unrecognized faces has exactly zero privacy impact. (See also: smart speakers listening for a hotword.)

> A local, on-device facial recognition programmed to immediately discard information on unrecognized faces has exactly zero privacy impact. (See also: smart speakers listening for a hotword.)

This just isn't true, though. Hotword detection fails frequently for me with Siri, Google Home, and Alexa. I haven't tried the others. They all pick up unrelated sounds and record them as if the hotword was spoken when it definitely was not. Not even a similar sounding set of words.

There are absolutely privacy implications for technology that does automated scanning and recognition of its environment. They are buggy, as all programs are, and they are hackable, as all programs are.

Being both potentially buggy, potentially hackable, and constantly alert and running algorithms on their environment is absolutely a valid and real privacy concern.

False positives.

(See also: smart speakers listening for a hotword.)

Which is, ironically, a problem that is solvable by improving the accuracy of voice/facial recognition technology.

Ironically how? Facial recognition isn't banned. Research isn't banned.

Another problem is that the risk of abuse is too great, even if the accuracy was flawless.

I find it ironic because that's one particular privacy problem where better facial recognition technology is the solution, not the cause.

If the accuracy were flawless then there would be zero false positives, and the aforementioned issue wouldn't exist at all.

You can't seriously believe that better facial recognition technology will result in better privacy - in any imaginable future. We live in a universe where Facebook and Google exist and people in adtech can justify their actions. Yet perfect facial recognition will lead to better privacy?

Oh, and it is hardly the only issue.

You're taking my statement out of context. Better facial recognition would fix the one particular privacy issue that you brought up. (False positives.) I've said nothing about adtech, Google, Facebook, or any of the other topics you're just now bringing into this discussion.

Fair enough, I just don't find that solving one edge-case at the same time as creating countless new major issues is particularly helpful.

Is the mechanism of consent relevant here?

How can it not be? We are talking about public spaces here.

You sign a contract, TOS, ect?

In a public space?

If you can't get the permission, then you don't have it - so yes, they can't simply use it on unsuspecting people in a public space.

Who do you work for?

Actually these ethics, in a democracy are determined by the majority of people via their elected representatives.

Not necessarily. Not going into political arguments, but just because the majority agrees with something, does not make it ethical.

Edit: I do agree with the sentiment of your post though. That is, to counter the idea that “ethics” depends on whatever view of the world an individual has.

Exactly, majority of the people in many of the states in the US believes gay marriage to be unethical.

I mean, not long ago, these same majority of people wouldn’t have voted for African americans to go to the same schools as white children.

And that’s all within this current generation

Seems like same thing is happening with facial recognition.

Furthermore, in democracies, people are regularly convinced to support all kinds of things they don't agree with or even understand.

By that logic collecting data in America is ethical, because it's not illegal in America

That's not really how Ethics works.

Hanging homosexuals is ethically wrong even if it fit popular support. Slavery is ethically wrong regardless of what people vote for.

How we judge past decisions is more complex then only the ethics, including knowledge, context, norms, etc.

but the ethics can be pretty clear

(can be because they can also not be clear, but they can certainly be clear.)

Ethics is a field with a long, rich history of study and many-threaded tapestries of thought. It's certainly not "whatever you want it to be", although there are schools that do what you suggest - picking the end point they wish to arrive at and and trying to reverse engineer the ethics that would lead to it.

These sort of decisions should not be made by large centralized agencies like EU. I would rather see these decisions being left to the individual countries and even better to local bodies.

May be London wants to take a different approach than Finland. That should be fine. Let each countries figure out what works for them.

Yeah as an American I don't get the EU. Sovereignty is worth more than convenience in trade.

As an American you don't see the benefit of a federal government of states for interstate commerce?

The federal government is the sovereign nation of the United States. We don't answer to a higher bureaucracy than that and we have direct influence over leadership in the Federal government.

The states themselves also retain substantial powers. They can block a Constitutional amendment or call a Constitutional convention, they can appeal to courts with 250 years of common law precedent backing them up, etc. There is much more clarity in the American system.

The EU doesn't work the same way.

And being a small country in gigantic bloc in a world of superpower real-politik is worth more than soverignty

I mean, many nations disagree with you. South Korea and Japan haven't joined forces against China. Norway and Switzerland remain out of the EU. And plenty of other counter-examples exist. The country of Singapore is not much bigger than a city. At least you have control over your own destiny as a sovereign nation and you have more agility with your economy.

The states under the Articles of Confederation felt that way, until they pursued federalization under the Constitution. Germany, Italy, even Britain used to be made of smaller parts that sought union. Countries occasionally choose to federate into a more powerful government. How is the EU any different, other than the process is more long-drawn?

I am not an American. Also, EU is anything but convenience in trade.

-It had been a peaceful night in Europe where all the women are strong, the men are good looking, and the children are above average. Martin woke up on his EU regulated bed and looked through his EU regulated window. This night, Martin had slept like a baby thanks to the 109 EU regulations concerning pillows, the 5 EU regulations concerning pillow cases, and the 50 EU laws regulating duvets and sheets. Martin went to brush his teeth with his toothbrush regulated by 31 EU laws.

After that, our EU-regulated man went to his EU regulated kitchen to grab a Class 1 EU regulated apple. For the benefit of society, the EU had defined what a “class 1” fruit actually is: to class a "Red Variety" apple as "class 1" then 50% of its surface must be red. To class a "Mixed red coloring variety" of apple as a "class 1" apple 33% of its surface must be red, and so it goes for the 3 quality classes and 287 individually named apple varieties. Martin ate fruits and vegetables because the government told him it is the right thing to do. He switched the TV on and listened to the “eat five fruits and vegetables” government ad with attention. Martin’s apple was not very tasty, but at least it was controlled by a European central authority. “Isn’t that great,” thought Martin, “the EU takes care of our food. We now can eat only nice and safe products!” Martin is paying 40% more for his food because of the EU’s highly protectionist agricultural policies, but it is the price one has to pay for civilization.

---

Copypasta is not an argument.

We existed fine up until now without pervasive facial recognition, but I find it difficult to conceive a future where this technology won't participate in some part of civic life. China is plowing ahead with smart city and rapidly developing surveillance state standards. US is not far behind. Europe is just ceding 5 years for illiberal forces to set standards, normalize behaviour and cultivate acceptance when it should be providing an alternate model - which can't be nothing because these businesses with go on with or without her.