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Comment by bsenftner | Hacker News Reader

Ya know, that conversation already happened, and the "powers that be" chose public safety over personal privacy. I work in facial recognition. You're gonna see it blanket this civilization, completely. We are selling systems to every school district, shopping center, sports stadium, and municipal district nationwide. In the 2nd world it is even more active. The time to debate FR is past.

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When was that time, precisely? I don't recall there being a debate about this. Will we just blow through the "time for debates" on every new technology?

It's been building with every school shooting, public gun violence, and high tension political gathering. The conversation takes place at the local level, often at the specific school itself, the specific campus, stadium and shopping district. You see, many of these places are private, so they can do what ever they want to a large degree; and many of the public spaces are patrolled by private security companies, who use the most cost effective method to cover large areas. The police are the end of the line as far as deploying facial recognition.

Ya know, that conversation already happened,

That's the thing, as the other commenter pointed out: for all practical purpose, there was no "debate" or "conversation" (outside the tech community, and a few wonky policy discussion forums). It has been basically presented as a fait accompli.

The "powers that be" chose public safety over personal privacy.

That may be the rational for (some of) the customers.

But I'm sure you know all too well that the vendors of this technology are (overwhelmingly) motivated by the pursuit of one thing, and one thing only. And it certainly isn't your safety or mine.

The "powers that be" are the collective owners of the franchises at the local mall, putting pressure on the mall security contractor. The "powers that be" are the loss prevention departments at every major retailer. They are also the security at every sports stadium, college campus, and local school district who are strapped for cash, looking to cover large areas in as cost effective a manner as possible. If you are looking for some over arching authority that says "yes we do" or "no we don't" as a society, I think the active adoption of FR by all these smaller private players is and is the end of the discussion.

Another point of view is that the "powers that be" is you - and me - and everyone else who has a choice to make about whether to work on technologies like these.

Historically speaking, the "if I didn't build X - someone else would have" argument -- well, we all know what that has led to.

> Ya know, that conversation already happened.

Bull. And even if it did you are literally suggesting that one can't change their mind.

You have to be in the conversation first, and then recognize that the conversation takes place at the private security contractor level. They are the people tasked with security of a hotel, shopping district, mall, sports stadium, airport, high school and college campus. They are they people adopting FR far more than the local police. They are also largely private companies, looking to be the most cost effective, and composed of typical security guards, education wise.

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