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Comment by ssijak | Hacker News Reader

So I can take follow someone in public, take picture of them in public places from some distance, follow them into stores, see what they are spending and what they are using, etc. Store owners can have cameras, track the behaviour of customers, etc But if I use a service which anonymously tracks which pages they opened on a website they voluntarily visited and are exploring, then I'm in trouble?

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What you're describing is very illegal in France, and you might have the police called on you or the person reacting aggressively if you're filming them like that. In fact there were a few incidents of that nature with Twitch streamers pointing their cameras at people and complaining online they were being mistreated by the locals.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Country_specific_...

This is a link I often check before traveling abroad regarding photography, and what is described is indeed illegal in France.

You're also in trouble if you send the data you collect by other methods without consent, to servers based in the USA for NSA to snoop around on and correlate with all their other data points.

Unless your argument is "but how would they know about it", in which case that applies to any other crime.

Instead you must give it to their European equivalents (which looks likely given the current state of affairs).

Yes, and NSA can read all communications anyway. This whole thing is a political issue not a technical one.

No, you can't stalk people.

You are not stalking, like doing it all the time. And you are not taking closeup in your face picture but from a distance. All that is not illegal in a lot of countries.

> if I use a service which anonymously tracks

Wrong. Google Analytics (at least v3 by default) tracks IP addresses, which are considered personal information. [1]

[1] https://www.cookielawinfo.com/anonymize-ip-in-google-analyti...

Actually, none of that is legal (in France at least), except for cameras.

In most countries, you may take a photo including some person walking down public space. However, if you follow this person, aim your camera at this person specifically, or take several pictures of the same person it would be considered an infringement of their "right to image" if not criminal stalking.

Stalking is illegal in every EU country, camera's need a permit and the customer tracking needs an opt-in in most countries or is just illegal

a) You can't do that. b) Your analogy does explain how creepy that desire is quite nicely.

You are in trouble in both cases.

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