This.

We're living a tech shift here. The way we used to respond to absolutism has been to require the our layman policeman doesn't have enough info to bully us. It has proven not to be possible, since technology is so accessible and pervasive that all our info is spilled.

So how would we write the Fourth Amendment today? "Information that is not public is against the constitution"?

Your solution to your concern that some people (the police) have access to data that tracks your whereabouts it to give everyone access to track your whereabouts?

I propose ending asymmetry. If everyone has access to everything (as well as access to logs of who accesses what) everyone has exactly the same problem and feels exactly the same pains.

It doesn't end asymmetry when politicians can use a car service, but most people can't afford to.

It's creates a new and unstoppable asymmetry where wealthy people can avoid this tracking mechanism, but the poorer people cannot, and anyone can exploit the poorer people in society.

Politicians and powerful people will never feel the effects of this.

This.

I wish people would understand that "losing perceived power", such as recognizing that an information asymmetry exists, is a completely different situation than "never having had power".

There are valid arguments for creating information symmetry, but it's not going to actually fix anything except lack of symmetry.

That sounds exactly like Bruce Schneier. If one side has abilities the other doesn't have, that side has power, leverage, etc. If the playing field is evened out, though, and each side has the same abilities, that's a more fair landscape.

Being compared to Bruce Schneier is quite a compliment. Thank you.

Middle ground is possible. Allow anyone access to the records the police are keeping on them. Make exceptions under the supervision of a judge (i.e., still allow adversarial investigations...).

The idea would be that this still creates a lot of opportunity for people to notice they don't like what the police are up to.

Middle ground is still asymmetric. You know what they know about you, but you still know nothing about them. Your privacy is invaded, but theirs remains intact.

Yeah. I'm looking at it from a perspective of just making progress towards some sort of useful transparency. I would anticipate a lot less objections to what I proposed.

That wouldn't work. If the police are in the middle of an investigation, their lack of information about someone that's committed a crime is that evidence. There's a complex situation here where if a person knows they're being investigated, there's a higher chance they'll destroy the evidence that they're being investigated for. Yes, there are crimes around destroying evidence; but they can reasonably say "Oh, but I didn't check the police investigation database before shredding my old ledger", for example.

Assume the typical example is a record of a parking ticket or something (i.e., the police have thin or no records on average).

Assume that either checks of the database or certain types of additions to the database would have some period of latency (additions is probably the better way).

Police begin some investigation. For whatever reason, they don't want to reveal this investigation to particular potentially involved parties. Police go to judge and ask for 'order of leeway' or whatever it would be called. They get it. All it means is that the police don't have to publish ongoing details regarding a specific investigation. New traffic tickets go right in the database, checks of the database do not reveal the investigation.

Where's the problem? Take it one step further, is there a problem without a straightforward remedy?

Destruction of evidence is more interested in whether you are doing it to cover up something that you reasonably know is a crime than it is in what the police know about what you did, so I'm not real worried about it here.

That won't end asymmetry, it's will just increase the asymmetrical advantage enjoyed by actors such as Google or Acxiom.

There would hopefully be a huge backlash against this collection once people are acutely aware of what the police are seeing.

except there never is. no one ever cares.

If the only two choices provided are only government gets access or everyone gets access, I'm going to choose everyone.

The choice of no one gets access is apparently not an option.

There are huge benefits to such systems but if the gateway is controlled by a small number of people then most of those benefits are null and most likely the system will prove to not be beneficial at all.

Well, not beneficial to the people outside of the group in control that is.

'No one gets access' has never been an option, though. It was impossible once ALPR/ANPR, or even the base technologies - OCR, large databases, and networking - were developed.

The no one gets access option requires that there be no collection in the first place. The technology used to access it doesn't matter that much.

How do you propose actually preventing the collection, particularly that by private citizens?

Note, I'm explicitly not talking about making it illegal or other feel-good measures. I'm talking about actually preventing the actions.

You're forgetting that some animals are more equal than others.

Such defeatism. Some people are violating our privacy, so we should just give up on the whole notion?

My worry about abuse of this data goes beyond public officials. I think the right to privacy is worth protecting, even in the face of changing technology.

If these are the choices for the future, and I really hope we can do better, then you'll find me living the hermits life somewhere in the mountains. Enjoy spending all your days watching what others do to make sure they're not screwing you over.

So, we all see the problem already. Do you have a plan that will actually solve the issue?

Data will continue to be collected, be it by state entities, corporations, or private citizens. It will keep happening whether it's declared illegal or not, as it's become clear that there's no working oversight of the state actors in particular.

No, I was simply trying to express that if these datasets are going to be collected, I'd rather access to them be restricted to government than for it to become a free-for-all, because I disagree with the GP that the root problem is information asymmetry. The problem is collection and availability, and that is not solved by wider dissemination.

I don't have any magical solution to the privacy issue (wish I did). My current approach is to try to be active in discussions on the topic, educate people about the risks, and trying to give a counterpoint to the David Brin-inspired peeping tom paradise a lot of tech people seem to love.