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Comment by repelsteeltje | Hacker News Reader

I agree. This is much like legislation around traditional weapons: Sure, you can't un-invent nuclear physics, gun powder, bows and arrows, knifes, sticks. They are to some level ubiquitous, available to anyone with enough resolve.

But that doesn't mean any entrepreneur can decide to produce or hoard large amounts of weapons for personal or commercial gains. In most countries, there are legislative boundaries that make sure the state has monopoly of violence and (preferably democratic) government controls that force.

That system of course is still dangerous and fragile, but far better than roving gangs or ultimate power at the hands of commercial organizations...

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In a lot of countries you are not allowed to just record private conversations with listening devices (and it is not happening as a mass phenomenon), so clearly we can legislate successfully against use of technology.

What would prevent me from walking around the street or in semi-public places recording non-stop on my phone? Heck, I could have a few phones in my pockets!

Legislation is not about prevention but about punishment.

Along the same lines: what would prevent you from using a knife to kill someone and hoping/attempting to make sure that no one notices?

Indeed, even though murder is illegal, it still happens. But the law is there to codify that murder is heavily frowned upon. Places where legislation were absent of the law isn't sufficiently effective enforced, tend to have more random violence.

> This is much like legislation around traditional weapons.

The problem with that comparison is that it would be very obvious and noteworthy if Nestle started to drop bombs or hired mercenaries to prey on villages who tried to fight their abusive water practices, or whatever analogous weapons fiction you can imagine to Big Tech abusing their data and resources for invasive spying. People would die and/or be injured, likely property would be destroyed--these are extremely tangible things.

Big tech could be using facial recognition for years and fly under the radar. Privacy is essentially intangible.

That's a very good point.

I guess that difference stems from the novelty of privacy invasion "weapons". A bit like attempting to threaten a Roman soldier by pointing a machine gun. It takes time, probably a couple of centuries to build up experience with surveillance to fully grasp the ramifications.

But we're also no longer at the unknown-unknown point; we understand that there might be serious problems unless we dial down the pace at which we allow data hoarding.

At least some privacy would be preserved if there was a law that said "if you have a legit reason to track people using facial recognition, you must throw away all inferred information after 1 hour". Or some other arbitrary limit. Or a law saying you're liable if your data were ever to leak. Or some other obstacle.

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