Hacker News Reader

Comment by ptero | Hacker News Reader

Fair. But even this (at least in the US) is the flip side of the laws that in public areas I can take any photos that I want. And I generally like this setup -- I can snap pictures of friends and kids without worrying about proving my right to take those photos).

This should not be taken for granted -- in the UK I was twice (very politely) asked to leave because I was taking a picture and apparently a gov't building was in the background (and you need a permission to photograph those!!) and the second time because a school volleyball competition was played in the background. This is stupid because if I did it with a phone instead of a DSLR no one would notice.

Maybe some limits on commercial photography in public spaces makes sense, but I would not go as far as putting strong limits on it altogether. My 2c.

View on HN

Photography in public places is a separate issue from long term stocking by companies. One can enable the other, but this does not mean they are equivalent. It's a very American fallacy to overextrapolate an individual right into a justification for commercial totalitarianism. But if an individual person were to suddenly start following you around and photographing you every few minutes, you would rightfully complain to the police. That this is being done at scale and for a profit motive should make it more worrying, not normalize it.

I don't think that limiting the photography or the means of the data collection is the solution. The law is going to have to apply post-mining.

In my opinion, we need to start treating data about users as intellectual property. Generally speaking, you don't have to worry about intellectual property when you're doing something personal. I can say "Just do it" all I want. In the same vein, I can make casual observations about random people on the street without having to worry about violating their privacy (that guy has cool shoes!). But if I start to use "just do it" in my business marketing materials, I'll be in trouble. Similarly, if I start keeping a database of somebody's shoes every time I see them so I can try to sell them something, that should be illegal.

Think of everything you would have to do to avoid being surveilled today. Heck, think about everything you would have had to do even 40-50 years ago. I think the issue is not wether or not you can avoid being surveilled. I think that debate is largely settled. So the next logical question is, what are the rules governing access to that data? At what point do you need consent and from whom do you need consent? I think the fear, sadly, is that even if we come up with rules there is the challenge of how to apply them retroactively or in a backwards-compatible way. It's quite possible that we now we significant portions of the economy relying on companies having unfettered access to their data. I see parallels between this and the shift to renewable energy. Revenue from oil companies is tightly woven into the fabric of the US economy in many ways.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com