Legislation and regulation operate on the basis of finding some viable point of control or enforcement.
The devices are ... ubiquitous. Collection all but certainly cannot be stopped.
What can be controlled is:
- The collection, solicitation, retention, sale, purchase, or transacting of the images, data, or access to each.
- Voiding of any contractual obligations concerning same. Any such business would literally be outside the law.
- Development of technologies or training sets concerning such data.
- Validity of any such data or conclusions derived from it in courts of law.
- Any business decisionmaking based on such data. Protected by whistleblower laws.
As a start.
Standalone collection, security footage recordings, and the like might be permitted with some limited retention period (say, 1--3 months), but restricting any aggregation of such data. Individual images could be taken. Posting identifiable images online without the freely-given willing consent of subjects should be sharply limited. Yes, that includes children. Compelling public-interest exceptions might exist.
The biggest challenge will be totalitarian surveillance states which practice and cultivate such surveillance, and which drive further technology and practices both within and beyond their own borders. That is a problem whcih inherently goes beyond mere law, and always has.
Privacy is the ability to express and enforce limitations on access to and distribution of information of, by, or about you. It is an emergent principle, and its own scope and definition expand precisely as information technologies do. In an age of speech, it concerns gossip, hearsay, and slander. In an age of print, libel. It has expanded with photography, telephony, improved optics and sensing (long lenses, infrared imaging, microwave scanning of structures), and with ever-expanding data storage, processing, and distribution.
In response to an earlier discussion where it was asserted that concerns over privacy in information technology are somehow a post-1980s phenomenon,[1] I compiled a list of notable persons in the field who'd voiced concern earlier, one of the most notable being Paul Baran, a co-inventor of packet-switched networks whilst working at RAND in the 1960s. At my request, his RAND monographs are now freely accessible to the public:
Paul Baran:
- "On the Engineer's Responsibility in Protecting Privacy"
- "On the Future Computer Era: Modification of the American Character and the Role of the Engineer, or, A Little Caution in the Haste to Number"
- "The Coming Computer Utility -- Laissez-Faire, Licensing, or Regulation?"
- "Remarks on the Question of Privacy Raised by the Automation of Mental Health Records"
- "Some Caveats on the Contribution of Technology to Law Enforcement"
Legislation and regulation operate on the basis of finding some viable point of control or enforcement.
The devices are ... ubiquitous. Collection all but certainly cannot be stopped.
What can be controlled is:
- The collection, solicitation, retention, sale, purchase, or transacting of the images, data, or access to each.
- Voiding of any contractual obligations concerning same. Any such business would literally be outside the law.
- Development of technologies or training sets concerning such data.
- Validity of any such data or conclusions derived from it in courts of law.
- Any business decisionmaking based on such data. Protected by whistleblower laws.
As a start.
Standalone collection, security footage recordings, and the like might be permitted with some limited retention period (say, 1--3 months), but restricting any aggregation of such data. Individual images could be taken. Posting identifiable images online without the freely-given willing consent of subjects should be sharply limited. Yes, that includes children. Compelling public-interest exceptions might exist.
The biggest challenge will be totalitarian surveillance states which practice and cultivate such surveillance, and which drive further technology and practices both within and beyond their own borders. That is a problem whcih inherently goes beyond mere law, and always has.
Privacy is the ability to express and enforce limitations on access to and distribution of information of, by, or about you. It is an emergent principle, and its own scope and definition expand precisely as information technologies do. In an age of speech, it concerns gossip, hearsay, and slander. In an age of print, libel. It has expanded with photography, telephony, improved optics and sensing (long lenses, infrared imaging, microwave scanning of structures), and with ever-expanding data storage, processing, and distribution.
In response to an earlier discussion where it was asserted that concerns over privacy in information technology are somehow a post-1980s phenomenon,[1] I compiled a list of notable persons in the field who'd voiced concern earlier, one of the most notable being Paul Baran, a co-inventor of packet-switched networks whilst working at RAND in the 1960s. At my request, his RAND monographs are now freely accessible to the public:
Paul Baran:
- "On the Engineer's Responsibility in Protecting Privacy"
- "On the Future Computer Era: Modification of the American Character and the Role of the Engineer, or, A Little Caution in the Haste to Number"
- "The Coming Computer Utility -- Laissez-Faire, Licensing, or Regulation?"
- "Remarks on the Question of Privacy Raised by the Automation of Mental Health Records"
- "Some Caveats on the Contribution of Technology to Law Enforcement"
Largely written/published 1967--1969.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/authors/b/baran_paul.html
I've listed additional authors and references here:
https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/105074933053020193
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Notes:
1. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24745246