#facial-recognition — Public Fediverse posts

Google users who delete their selfie video lose access to some features: Face scans stay encrypted at rest, yet deletion costs advanced features and an opt-in setting feeds facial recognition training. What does GDPR make of it? https://ppc.land/google-users-who-delete-their-selfie-video-lose-access-to-some-features/ #Google #Privacy #GDPR #FacialRecognition #DataProtection

Google users who delete their selfie video lose access to some features: Face scans stay encrypted at rest, yet deletion costs advanced features and an opt-in setting feeds facial recognition training. What does GDPR make of it? https://ppc.land/google-users-who-delete-their-selfie-video-lose-access-to-some-features/ #Google #Privacy #GDPR #FacialRecognition #DataProtection

These ‘Anti-Facial Recognition’ Glasses Block Surveillance Cameras https://petapixel.com/2026/07/23/these-anti-facial-recognition-glasses-block-surveillance-cameras/ #antifacialrecognition #facialrecognition #metasmartglasses #surveillance #Technology #eyewear #glasses #News

These ‘Anti-Facial Recognition’ Glasses Block Surveillance Cameras https://petapixel.com/2026/07/23/these-anti-facial-recognition-glasses-block-surveillance-cameras/ #antifacialrecognition #facialrecognition #metasmartglasses #surveillance #Technology #eyewear #glasses #News

The Age of Surveillance in 2026: Are We Ever Truly Alone Anymore?

You leave home and a doorbell camera records you. A camera at the traffic light captures your car. Your phone logs its location, nearby networks, and the applications you open. Your vehicle may record how fast you drive, how sharply you brake, and where you travel. At lunch, a platform studies how long you pause over a video. At home, a smart speaker waits for a command while a connected television measures what holds your attention.

Nothing dramatic has happened.

That is precisely the point.

Modern surveillance rarely announces itself. It does not always arrive through secret agents, hidden microphones, or somebody following you through the street. It often arrives disguised as convenience, personalisation, security, entertainment, or efficiency. It operates quietly in the background, gathering thousands of ordinary moments and converting them into something valuable: a record of who you are, where you go, what you believe, what you buy, whom you know, and what you might do next.

The question is no longer whether we are being watched.

The more difficult question is what happens to a society when being watched becomes the normal condition of everyday life.

1. Surveillance Is No Longer Just About Watching

Traditional surveillance involved observing a person, place, or communication. Digital surveillance goes much further. It does not merely see what happened. It stores events, connects them, compares them with other records, and uses algorithms to draw conclusions.

A camera records your face. Facial-recognition software may attempt to identify you. Your phone records a location. A data broker may connect that location to your home, workplace, religious attendance, medical visits, or political activity. A platform records what you clicked. Its systems may use that information to predict what will keep you watching, what you may purchase, or which message might influence you.

This is the difference between being observed and being analysed.

The most powerful surveillance systems are not necessarily those with the greatest number of cameras. They are the systems capable of combining information from cameras, phones, vehicles, websites, payment records, public databases, and private companies into one searchable picture of a human life.

2. Cameras Can Improve Security, but Their Value Has Limits

The strongest argument for public surveillance is straightforward. Cameras can help deter some offences, identify suspects, reconstruct events, locate missing people, and provide evidence after a crime. Those benefits are real.

But the evidence does not support the idea that installing more cameras automatically makes every environment safer. A major 40-year systematic review found that CCTV was associated with a statistically significant but modest reduction in crime. Its strongest and most consistent effects appeared in car parks, residential areas, and systems involving active monitoring. The evidence was weaker for preventing spontaneous violence.

That distinction matters. Cameras may be useful tools, but they are not neutral and they are not magical. A camera installed for one purpose can later be connected to facial recognition, behavioural analysis, licence-plate databases, or automated enforcement systems.

The political question is therefore not simply, “Do cameras work?”

It is:

Who operates them, what do they search for, how long is the information kept, who can access it, and what prevents the system from quietly expanding?

3. Facial Recognition Changes the Meaning of Public Space

Ordinary video surveillance records people passing through an area. Facial recognition can attempt to identify those people automatically and compare them with watchlists.

London offers a real example of how quickly this technology can scale. In its official report covering September 2024 to September 2025, the Metropolitan Police said approximately 3.15 million faces passed its live facial-recognition cameras during 207 deployments. The force reported 2,077 alerts, 10 false alerts, and 962 arrests. The Met presents those results as evidence that the system can locate people wanted by courts or suspected of offences more efficiently than officers relying on memory alone.

Those numbers also reveal the central privacy problem. Millions of people who were not suspected of wrongdoing had their faces processed so that the system could find a much smaller number of individuals.

The European Data Protection Board considers facial recognition a serious interference with fundamental rights even when a person produces no match. Its guidance stresses that biometric information is especially sensitive because, unlike a password or telephone number, a person cannot replace their face if the data is compromised. It also warns about discrimination, false results, automation bias, and the effect of large-scale biometric processing on democratic life.

Technical accuracy is improving, but accuracy is not a settled question. NIST continues to test face-recognition systems from hundreds of developers and published an updated one-to-one verification report in May 2026. Its broader evaluations have also documented that performance can vary across algorithms, image quality, age, sex, and demographic groups. A system being described as “accurate” does not mean it performs equally in every operational environment or for every person.

And even a technically perfect system would not settle the moral question. A machine could identify everyone correctly and still be used for an unjustifiable purpose.

4. Your Smartphone Is Also a Location Sensor

Most people do not think of their phone as a surveillance device because they chose to buy it. Yet the information generated through mobile applications can reveal an extraordinary amount about a person’s life.

The United States Federal Trade Commission has repeatedly acted against companies accused of collecting or selling sensitive location data without meaningful consent. Its cases have involved data that could expose visits to homes, places of worship, medical facilities, domestic-abuse shelters, and other sensitive locations. In 2026, the FTC announced a settlement intended to ban Kochava and a subsidiary from selling sensitive location data associated with millions of mobile devices. Earlier actions targeted X-Mode, InMarket, Mobilewalla, Gravy Analytics, and Venntel.

The problem is not restricted to phones. In 2025, the FTC alleged that General Motors and OnStar collected and sold precise geolocation and driving-behaviour information from millions of connected vehicles without adequately informing drivers or obtaining affirmative consent. The agency said that information could be used by consumer-reporting companies and could affect insurance rates.

The modern car is therefore not merely a machine that transports you. It may also be a rolling network of sensors capable of recording how, when, and where you travel.

5. Social Media Does Not Only Record What You Post

People often assume that social platforms know only what users voluntarily share. Official investigations indicate a much broader system.

A Federal Trade Commission investigation of nine major social-media and video-streaming services found that companies collected enormous amounts of information, including data obtained from brokers and information about people who did not use their services. The FTC reported that some companies could retain data indefinitely and engaged in extensive sharing, targeted advertising, profiling, and automated decision-making.

The business value is not limited to advertising. In 2025, the FTC’s surveillance-pricing study found that data such as precise location and browsing history could be used to present different consumers with different prices for the same product or service.

That creates a different kind of power. Surveillance is no longer only about discovering what someone has done. It can influence what opportunities, prices, advertisements, political messages, and information that person sees.

Two people may search for the same product, read about the same political issue, or apply for the same service and receive different digital realities based on profiles they cannot inspect.

6. Surveillance Has Entered the Home

For most of history, the home represented a boundary. Governments, employers, advertisers, and strangers might observe public activity, but the private home offered at least some distance from outside scrutiny.

Connected devices have weakened that boundary.

Home-security cameras, smart speakers, televisions, appliances, children’s devices, and voice assistants can collect video, audio, behavioural, and location information. The danger is not theoretical.

In an enforcement action involving Ring, the FTC alleged that employees had improperly accessed customer videos and that weak security practices allowed hackers to take control of some users’ cameras. Ring agreed to privacy and security requirements and consumer refunds.

In a separate case involving Alexa, the FTC and US Department of Justice accused Amazon of retaining children’s voice recordings and geolocation information for years, failing to honour some deletion requests, and using retained information for algorithm training. The resulting order required deletion measures, privacy safeguards, and a $25 million payment.

These cases do not mean every smart device is secretly listening to every conversation. They demonstrate a more grounded danger: when intimate data exists, poor controls, deceptive practices, misuse, hacking, or future changes in policy can expose it.

The safest personal information is not always the information protected by the strongest promise. It is often the information that was never collected.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevegarfield/43023882962

7. The Psychological Cost Is Self-Censorship

The deepest harm caused by surveillance may not be what authorities or companies do with information. It may be what people stop doing because they believe the information could later be used against them.

A peer-reviewed 2026 field experiment followed 827 participants over six weeks. Researchers repeatedly exposed participants to information about digital surveillance. Within individuals, that exposure reduced comfort with sharing opinions, seeking information, and disclosing information online. The study described this as causal evidence that awareness of dataveillance can produce self-censorship.

This is known as the chilling effect.

A person does not need to be arrested, punished, or confronted for surveillance to influence them. Uncertainty may be enough. People may avoid searching for a controversial subject, attending a protest, contacting a journalist, questioning an employer, exploring an identity, or expressing an unpopular view because they do not know how a permanent digital record could be interpreted later.

Surveillance therefore changes behaviour even when nobody actively intervenes.

A society in which people are constantly identifiable may become orderly. It may also become less honest, less creative, and less willing to challenge authority.

8. The Security Argument Cannot Simply Be Ignored

A serious discussion must acknowledge that surveillance can protect people.

Live facial recognition has helped police locate people wanted by courts. CCTV can assist investigations and reduce some forms of property crime. Digital intelligence can help identify organized criminal networks, terrorism threats, exploitation, fraud, and missing persons. The US intelligence community continues to use surveillance authorities under FISA and other national-security laws, publishing annual statistics and oversight information through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The choice is not between a world with absolutely no surveillance and a world where every movement is recorded.

The real question is whether surveillance is:

• targeted or indiscriminate;
• necessary or merely convenient;
• temporary or permanent;
• independently authorized or internally approved;
• open to challenge or hidden behind secrecy;
• limited to serious threats or expanded to minor behaviour;
• effective enough to justify its cost to freedom.

Security can justify carefully limited surveillance. It cannot justify limitless collection simply because information may someday prove useful.

9. The Law Is Trying to Catch Up

Europe has moved further than many jurisdictions in recognizing data protection as a legal right rather than merely a consumer preference.

As of July 21, 2026, the EU Artificial Intelligence Act is approaching its main application date of August 2, 2026. Its prohibited-practices rules have applied since February 2025. The Act generally prohibits practices including social scoring, certain forms of predictive policing, and real-time remote biometric identification by law enforcement in public spaces, although narrow legal exceptions remain. Some high-risk AI obligations have later implementation dates.

The distinction between a general prohibition and a total ban matters. European law still allows some biometric surveillance in specific circumstances, but it places greater emphasis on legal authority, strict necessity, proportionality, documentation, and fundamental-rights safeguards.

The GDPR already gives people in the European Union rights to request access to their personal data, correct inaccurate information, object to some forms of processing, withdraw consent, and request deletion in qualifying circumstances. These rights are not absolute, but they provide individuals with legal tools that go beyond clicking a privacy setting.

Regulation alone will not solve the problem. Laws can be weakened by broad exceptions, slow enforcement, complex procedures, and technologies developing faster than institutions can examine them. But without enforceable limits, promises of responsible surveillance remain voluntary.

10. Consent Has Become a Ritual

Much of digital surveillance is defended through consent.

The user accepted the terms. The driver enabled the service. The customer clicked the box. The resident installed the camera. The parent activated the smart speaker.

But consent means very little when refusing it means losing access to communication, employment tools, transportation features, banking, social participation, or essential digital services.

A person cannot meaningfully evaluate dozens of policies written in complex legal language, especially when companies later combine information with data obtained elsewhere or use it for purposes that were not obvious when it was collected.

Real consent should be specific, understandable, freely given, and reversible. It should not require someone to surrender an entire behavioral profile merely to use a basic service.

Otherwise, the consent box becomes less like permission and more like a legal receipt proving that the surveillance occurred.

11. Privacy Is Not About Having Something to Hide

The phrase “I have nothing to hide” misunderstands what privacy protects.

Privacy allows people to think before speaking, make mistakes without permanent exposure, change political beliefs, explore relationships, recover from difficult periods, seek medical or psychological help, and become someone different from the person described by an old database.

A society without privacy does not merely expose criminals. It freezes ordinary people inside permanent records.

Information collected today may be analyzed by different institutions tomorrow. A location record gathered for advertising may later affect insurance. A photograph uploaded for entertainment may become biometric training data. A political opinion expressed under one government may be judged differently under another.

Privacy is therefore not secrecy.

It is the space required for freedom, dignity, experimentation, and change.

12. Are We Ever Truly Alone Anymore?

Probably less often than we realize.

But the future is not predetermined.

Societies can prohibit certain uses of biometric identification. Regulators can limit the sale of location data. Courts can require warrants and proportionality. Companies can minimize collection instead of retaining information indefinitely. Engineers can build privacy into devices rather than treating it as an optional setting. Citizens can demand clear explanations about systems deployed in their streets, schools, workplaces, vehicles, and homes.

Individuals can also reduce unnecessary exposure. Review application permissions, remove location access that is not essential, delete stored voice and video histories, use encrypted communication, disable unnecessary personalization, request copies of data held about you, and exercise deletion or objection rights where the law provides them.

None of these actions makes a person invisible. That should not be the standard.

The goal is not to disappear from society. It is to prevent participation in society from requiring the surrender of an intimate, permanent, and searchable record of our lives.

The defining political struggle of the surveillance age will not be whether technology can watch us.

It already can.

The struggle will be whether democratic societies remain capable of telling it when to stop.

The Age of Surveillance in 2026: Are We Ever Truly Alone Anymore?

You leave home and a doorbell camera records you. A camera at the traffic light captures your car. Your phone logs its location, nearby networks, and the applications you open. Your vehicle may record how fast you drive, how sharply you brake, and where you travel. At lunch, a platform studies how long you pause over a video. At home, a smart speaker waits for a command while a connected television measures what holds your attention.

Nothing dramatic has happened.

That is precisely the point.

Modern surveillance rarely announces itself. It does not always arrive through secret agents, hidden microphones, or somebody following you through the street. It often arrives disguised as convenience, personalisation, security, entertainment, or efficiency. It operates quietly in the background, gathering thousands of ordinary moments and converting them into something valuable: a record of who you are, where you go, what you believe, what you buy, whom you know, and what you might do next.

The question is no longer whether we are being watched.

The more difficult question is what happens to a society when being watched becomes the normal condition of everyday life.

1. Surveillance Is No Longer Just About Watching

Traditional surveillance involved observing a person, place, or communication. Digital surveillance goes much further. It does not merely see what happened. It stores events, connects them, compares them with other records, and uses algorithms to draw conclusions.

A camera records your face. Facial-recognition software may attempt to identify you. Your phone records a location. A data broker may connect that location to your home, workplace, religious attendance, medical visits, or political activity. A platform records what you clicked. Its systems may use that information to predict what will keep you watching, what you may purchase, or which message might influence you.

This is the difference between being observed and being analysed.

The most powerful surveillance systems are not necessarily those with the greatest number of cameras. They are the systems capable of combining information from cameras, phones, vehicles, websites, payment records, public databases, and private companies into one searchable picture of a human life.

2. Cameras Can Improve Security, but Their Value Has Limits

The strongest argument for public surveillance is straightforward. Cameras can help deter some offences, identify suspects, reconstruct events, locate missing people, and provide evidence after a crime. Those benefits are real.

But the evidence does not support the idea that installing more cameras automatically makes every environment safer. A major 40-year systematic review found that CCTV was associated with a statistically significant but modest reduction in crime. Its strongest and most consistent effects appeared in car parks, residential areas, and systems involving active monitoring. The evidence was weaker for preventing spontaneous violence.

That distinction matters. Cameras may be useful tools, but they are not neutral and they are not magical. A camera installed for one purpose can later be connected to facial recognition, behavioural analysis, licence-plate databases, or automated enforcement systems.

The political question is therefore not simply, “Do cameras work?”

It is:

Who operates them, what do they search for, how long is the information kept, who can access it, and what prevents the system from quietly expanding?

3. Facial Recognition Changes the Meaning of Public Space

Ordinary video surveillance records people passing through an area. Facial recognition can attempt to identify those people automatically and compare them with watchlists.

London offers a real example of how quickly this technology can scale. In its official report covering September 2024 to September 2025, the Metropolitan Police said approximately 3.15 million faces passed its live facial-recognition cameras during 207 deployments. The force reported 2,077 alerts, 10 false alerts, and 962 arrests. The Met presents those results as evidence that the system can locate people wanted by courts or suspected of offences more efficiently than officers relying on memory alone.

Those numbers also reveal the central privacy problem. Millions of people who were not suspected of wrongdoing had their faces processed so that the system could find a much smaller number of individuals.

The European Data Protection Board considers facial recognition a serious interference with fundamental rights even when a person produces no match. Its guidance stresses that biometric information is especially sensitive because, unlike a password or telephone number, a person cannot replace their face if the data is compromised. It also warns about discrimination, false results, automation bias, and the effect of large-scale biometric processing on democratic life.

Technical accuracy is improving, but accuracy is not a settled question. NIST continues to test face-recognition systems from hundreds of developers and published an updated one-to-one verification report in May 2026. Its broader evaluations have also documented that performance can vary across algorithms, image quality, age, sex, and demographic groups. A system being described as “accurate” does not mean it performs equally in every operational environment or for every person.

And even a technically perfect system would not settle the moral question. A machine could identify everyone correctly and still be used for an unjustifiable purpose.

4. Your Smartphone Is Also a Location Sensor

Most people do not think of their phone as a surveillance device because they chose to buy it. Yet the information generated through mobile applications can reveal an extraordinary amount about a person’s life.

The United States Federal Trade Commission has repeatedly acted against companies accused of collecting or selling sensitive location data without meaningful consent. Its cases have involved data that could expose visits to homes, places of worship, medical facilities, domestic-abuse shelters, and other sensitive locations. In 2026, the FTC announced a settlement intended to ban Kochava and a subsidiary from selling sensitive location data associated with millions of mobile devices. Earlier actions targeted X-Mode, InMarket, Mobilewalla, Gravy Analytics, and Venntel.

The problem is not restricted to phones. In 2025, the FTC alleged that General Motors and OnStar collected and sold precise geolocation and driving-behaviour information from millions of connected vehicles without adequately informing drivers or obtaining affirmative consent. The agency said that information could be used by consumer-reporting companies and could affect insurance rates.

The modern car is therefore not merely a machine that transports you. It may also be a rolling network of sensors capable of recording how, when, and where you travel.

5. Social Media Does Not Only Record What You Post

People often assume that social platforms know only what users voluntarily share. Official investigations indicate a much broader system.

A Federal Trade Commission investigation of nine major social-media and video-streaming services found that companies collected enormous amounts of information, including data obtained from brokers and information about people who did not use their services. The FTC reported that some companies could retain data indefinitely and engaged in extensive sharing, targeted advertising, profiling, and automated decision-making.

The business value is not limited to advertising. In 2025, the FTC’s surveillance-pricing study found that data such as precise location and browsing history could be used to present different consumers with different prices for the same product or service.

That creates a different kind of power. Surveillance is no longer only about discovering what someone has done. It can influence what opportunities, prices, advertisements, political messages, and information that person sees.

Two people may search for the same product, read about the same political issue, or apply for the same service and receive different digital realities based on profiles they cannot inspect.

6. Surveillance Has Entered the Home

For most of history, the home represented a boundary. Governments, employers, advertisers, and strangers might observe public activity, but the private home offered at least some distance from outside scrutiny.

Connected devices have weakened that boundary.

Home-security cameras, smart speakers, televisions, appliances, children’s devices, and voice assistants can collect video, audio, behavioural, and location information. The danger is not theoretical.

In an enforcement action involving Ring, the FTC alleged that employees had improperly accessed customer videos and that weak security practices allowed hackers to take control of some users’ cameras. Ring agreed to privacy and security requirements and consumer refunds.

In a separate case involving Alexa, the FTC and US Department of Justice accused Amazon of retaining children’s voice recordings and geolocation information for years, failing to honour some deletion requests, and using retained information for algorithm training. The resulting order required deletion measures, privacy safeguards, and a $25 million payment.

These cases do not mean every smart device is secretly listening to every conversation. They demonstrate a more grounded danger: when intimate data exists, poor controls, deceptive practices, misuse, hacking, or future changes in policy can expose it.

The safest personal information is not always the information protected by the strongest promise. It is often the information that was never collected.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevegarfield/43023882962

7. The Psychological Cost Is Self-Censorship

The deepest harm caused by surveillance may not be what authorities or companies do with information. It may be what people stop doing because they believe the information could later be used against them.

A peer-reviewed 2026 field experiment followed 827 participants over six weeks. Researchers repeatedly exposed participants to information about digital surveillance. Within individuals, that exposure reduced comfort with sharing opinions, seeking information, and disclosing information online. The study described this as causal evidence that awareness of dataveillance can produce self-censorship.

This is known as the chilling effect.

A person does not need to be arrested, punished, or confronted for surveillance to influence them. Uncertainty may be enough. People may avoid searching for a controversial subject, attending a protest, contacting a journalist, questioning an employer, exploring an identity, or expressing an unpopular view because they do not know how a permanent digital record could be interpreted later.

Surveillance therefore changes behaviour even when nobody actively intervenes.

A society in which people are constantly identifiable may become orderly. It may also become less honest, less creative, and less willing to challenge authority.

8. The Security Argument Cannot Simply Be Ignored

A serious discussion must acknowledge that surveillance can protect people.

Live facial recognition has helped police locate people wanted by courts. CCTV can assist investigations and reduce some forms of property crime. Digital intelligence can help identify organized criminal networks, terrorism threats, exploitation, fraud, and missing persons. The US intelligence community continues to use surveillance authorities under FISA and other national-security laws, publishing annual statistics and oversight information through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The choice is not between a world with absolutely no surveillance and a world where every movement is recorded.

The real question is whether surveillance is:

• targeted or indiscriminate;
• necessary or merely convenient;
• temporary or permanent;
• independently authorized or internally approved;
• open to challenge or hidden behind secrecy;
• limited to serious threats or expanded to minor behaviour;
• effective enough to justify its cost to freedom.

Security can justify carefully limited surveillance. It cannot justify limitless collection simply because information may someday prove useful.

9. The Law Is Trying to Catch Up

Europe has moved further than many jurisdictions in recognizing data protection as a legal right rather than merely a consumer preference.

As of July 21, 2026, the EU Artificial Intelligence Act is approaching its main application date of August 2, 2026. Its prohibited-practices rules have applied since February 2025. The Act generally prohibits practices including social scoring, certain forms of predictive policing, and real-time remote biometric identification by law enforcement in public spaces, although narrow legal exceptions remain. Some high-risk AI obligations have later implementation dates.

The distinction between a general prohibition and a total ban matters. European law still allows some biometric surveillance in specific circumstances, but it places greater emphasis on legal authority, strict necessity, proportionality, documentation, and fundamental-rights safeguards.

The GDPR already gives people in the European Union rights to request access to their personal data, correct inaccurate information, object to some forms of processing, withdraw consent, and request deletion in qualifying circumstances. These rights are not absolute, but they provide individuals with legal tools that go beyond clicking a privacy setting.

Regulation alone will not solve the problem. Laws can be weakened by broad exceptions, slow enforcement, complex procedures, and technologies developing faster than institutions can examine them. But without enforceable limits, promises of responsible surveillance remain voluntary.

10. Consent Has Become a Ritual

Much of digital surveillance is defended through consent.

The user accepted the terms. The driver enabled the service. The customer clicked the box. The resident installed the camera. The parent activated the smart speaker.

But consent means very little when refusing it means losing access to communication, employment tools, transportation features, banking, social participation, or essential digital services.

A person cannot meaningfully evaluate dozens of policies written in complex legal language, especially when companies later combine information with data obtained elsewhere or use it for purposes that were not obvious when it was collected.

Real consent should be specific, understandable, freely given, and reversible. It should not require someone to surrender an entire behavioral profile merely to use a basic service.

Otherwise, the consent box becomes less like permission and more like a legal receipt proving that the surveillance occurred.

11. Privacy Is Not About Having Something to Hide

The phrase “I have nothing to hide” misunderstands what privacy protects.

Privacy allows people to think before speaking, make mistakes without permanent exposure, change political beliefs, explore relationships, recover from difficult periods, seek medical or psychological help, and become someone different from the person described by an old database.

A society without privacy does not merely expose criminals. It freezes ordinary people inside permanent records.

Information collected today may be analyzed by different institutions tomorrow. A location record gathered for advertising may later affect insurance. A photograph uploaded for entertainment may become biometric training data. A political opinion expressed under one government may be judged differently under another.

Privacy is therefore not secrecy.

It is the space required for freedom, dignity, experimentation, and change.

12. Are We Ever Truly Alone Anymore?

Probably less often than we realize.

But the future is not predetermined.

Societies can prohibit certain uses of biometric identification. Regulators can limit the sale of location data. Courts can require warrants and proportionality. Companies can minimize collection instead of retaining information indefinitely. Engineers can build privacy into devices rather than treating it as an optional setting. Citizens can demand clear explanations about systems deployed in their streets, schools, workplaces, vehicles, and homes.

Individuals can also reduce unnecessary exposure. Review application permissions, remove location access that is not essential, delete stored voice and video histories, use encrypted communication, disable unnecessary personalization, request copies of data held about you, and exercise deletion or objection rights where the law provides them.

None of these actions makes a person invisible. That should not be the standard.

The goal is not to disappear from society. It is to prevent participation in society from requiring the surrender of an intimate, permanent, and searchable record of our lives.

The defining political struggle of the surveillance age will not be whether technology can watch us.

It already can.

The struggle will be whether democratic societies remain capable of telling it when to stop.

‘ #Adversarial clothing’:

Are garments designed to confuse #FacialRecognition systems about to go mainstream?

Unser #KOMMENTAR:

Auch anti- #surveillance fashion wäre wieder ein profiterzeugendes #Produkt, welches nur das Symptom angeht statt der Krankheit, nämlich die ausufernde Überwachung.

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/jul/17/adversarial-clothing-are-garments-designed-to-confuse-facial-recognition-systems-about-to-go-mainstream

‘ #Adversarial clothing’:

Are garments designed to confuse #FacialRecognition systems about to go mainstream?

Unser #KOMMENTAR:

Auch anti- #surveillance fashion wäre wieder ein profiterzeugendes #Produkt, welches nur das Symptom angeht statt der Krankheit, nämlich die ausufernde Überwachung.

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/jul/17/adversarial-clothing-are-garments-designed-to-confuse-facial-recognition-systems-about-to-go-mainstream

#Meta executives initially denied the existence of a #facialrecognition feature, #NameTag, in their #AIGlasses. However, CTO Andrew Bosworth later described the feature in detail, contradicting previous statements. The feature, which would be encrypted and localised to the user’s device, aims to help users remember people they’ve met, addressing the “cocktail party problem.“ https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/meta-exec-describes-facial-recognition-feature?Metaver.se #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #XR #VR #MR #AR #BeyondPictures

#Meta executives initially denied the existence of a #facialrecognition feature, #NameTag, in their #AIGlasses. However, CTO Andrew Bosworth later described the feature in detail, contradicting previous statements. The feature, which would be encrypted and localised to the user’s device, aims to help users remember people they’ve met, addressing the “cocktail party problem.“ https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/meta-exec-describes-facial-recognition-feature?Metaver.se #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #XR #VR #MR #AR #BeyondPictures

The #ACLU Is Arming #Lawyers to Expose State #Surveillance #Secrets

A new toolkit for #attorneys in #Massachusetts targets the technologies #police use—and conceal—to build criminal cases, from facial recognition to AI-written police reports.
#ai #facialrecognition #security

https://www.wired.com/story/the-aclu-is-arming-lawyers-to-expose-state-surveillance-secrets/

The #ACLU Is Arming #Lawyers to Expose State #Surveillance #Secrets

A new toolkit for #attorneys in #Massachusetts targets the technologies #police use—and conceal—to build criminal cases, from facial recognition to AI-written police reports.
#ai #facialrecognition #security

https://www.wired.com/story/the-aclu-is-arming-lawyers-to-expose-state-surveillance-secrets/

Top Meta Exec Describes Controversial Facial Recognition Feature in Detail After the Company Claimed It Didn’t Exist

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/meta-exec-describes-facial-recognition-feature

Top Meta Exec Describes Controversial Facial Recognition Feature in Detail After the Company Claimed It Didn’t Exist

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/meta-exec-describes-facial-recognition-feature

‘Adversarial clothing’: are garments designed to confuse facial recognition systems about to go mainstream?

Designers say that as well as offering a degree of protection from #surveillance , their clothes make a powerful fashion statement about the importance of #privacy
#adversarialclothing #fashion #facialrecognition

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/jul/17/adversarial-clothing-are-garments-designed-to-confuse-facial-recognition-systems-about-to-go-mainstream

‘Adversarial clothing’: are garments designed to confuse facial recognition systems about to go mainstream?

Designers say that as well as offering a degree of protection from #surveillance , their clothes make a powerful fashion statement about the importance of #privacy
#adversarialclothing #fashion #facialrecognition

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/jul/17/adversarial-clothing-are-garments-designed-to-confuse-facial-recognition-systems-about-to-go-mainstream

Privacy is a luxury.

https://www.capable.design/products/ai-camo-t-shirt

#ai #privacy #facialrecognition #fashion #capitalism

Privacy is a luxury.

https://www.capable.design/products/ai-camo-t-shirt

#ai #privacy #facialrecognition #fashion #capitalism

Madison Square Garden sues WIRED over claim it tracked LGBTQ+ celebrities https://www.allforgardening.com/1881561/madison-square-garden-sues-wired-over-claim-it-tracked-lgbtq-celebrities/ #BiometricSurveillance #CelebrityDatabase #CelebrityRiskScores #DataPrivacyConcerns #DefamationLawsuit #FacialRecognition #garden #gardener #gardening #JamesDolan #KnicksFans #LgbtqiaCategorization #MadisonSquareGarden #MediaLawsuit #MSGEntertainment #ShinyhuntersHack #TalentDatabase #WiredMagazine

Madison Square Garden sues WIRED over claim it tracked LGBTQ+ celebrities https://www.allforgardening.com/1881561/madison-square-garden-sues-wired-over-claim-it-tracked-lgbtq-celebrities/ #BiometricSurveillance #CelebrityDatabase #CelebrityRiskScores #DataPrivacyConcerns #DefamationLawsuit #FacialRecognition #garden #gardener #gardening #JamesDolan #KnicksFans #LgbtqiaCategorization #MadisonSquareGarden #MediaLawsuit #MSGEntertainment #ShinyhuntersHack #TalentDatabase #WiredMagazine

#BSI ( @bsi ) seziert #WindowsHello: Wo Microsofts Anmeldung an Grenzen stößt | iX Magazin https://www.heise.de/news/BSI-seziert-Windows-Hello-Wo-Microsofts-Anmeldung-an-Grenzen-stoesst-11365867.html #WindowsSeziert #Windows :windows: #Microsoft #MicrosoftWindows :windows: #Gesichtserkennung #FacialRecognition #Biometrie #biometrics

#BSI ( @bsi ) seziert #WindowsHello: Wo Microsofts Anmeldung an Grenzen stößt | iX Magazin https://www.heise.de/news/BSI-seziert-Windows-Hello-Wo-Microsofts-Anmeldung-an-Grenzen-stoesst-11365867.html #WindowsSeziert #Windows :windows: #Microsoft #MicrosoftWindows :windows: #Gesichtserkennung #FacialRecognition #Biometrie #biometrics

‘Adversarial clothing’: are garments designed to confuse facial recognition systems about to go mainstream? https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/jul/17/adversarial-clothing-are-garments-designed-to-confuse-facial-recognition-systems-about-to-go-mainstream #Fashion #FacialRecognition #Surveillance #AiArtificialIntelligence #Computing #LifeAndStyle #Technology #UkNews #WorldNews

‘Adversarial clothing’: are garments designed to confuse facial recognition systems about to go mainstream? https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/jul/17/adversarial-clothing-are-garments-designed-to-confuse-facial-recognition-systems-about-to-go-mainstream #Fashion #FacialRecognition #Surveillance #AiArtificialIntelligence #Computing #LifeAndStyle #Technology #UkNews #WorldNews

‘Adversarial clothing’: are garments designed to confuse facial recognition systems about to go mainstream?
By Amelia Hill

Designers say that as well as offering a degree of protection from surveillance, their clothes make a powerful fashion statement about the importance of privacy

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/jul/17/adversarial-clothing-are-garments-designed-to-confuse-facial-recognition-systems-about-to-go-mainstream

#Fashion #Facialrecognition #Surveillance #AIartificialintelligence #Computing #Lifeandstyle #Technology #UKnews #Worldnews #TheGuardian #AmeliaHill

‘Adversarial clothing’: are garments designed to confuse facial recognition systems about to go mainstream?
By Amelia Hill

Designers say that as well as offering a degree of protection from surveillance, their clothes make a powerful fashion statement about the importance of privacy

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/jul/17/adversarial-clothing-are-garments-designed-to-confuse-facial-recognition-systems-about-to-go-mainstream

#Fashion #Facialrecognition #Surveillance #AIartificialintelligence #Computing #Lifeandstyle #Technology #UKnews #Worldnews #TheGuardian #AmeliaHill

Now that the CEO of Flock has called deflock.me a terrorist organization, I'd hate for other people to know about these other flock watchdog groups.

Please don't go on these websites, I beg you.

https://Alpr.wtf - Every U.S. jurisdiction using ALPR, plus how to file info requests.

https://EyesOnFlock.com - Crowdsourced map of Flock cameras and city contracts.

https://Deflock.me - Nationwide ALPR map tracking Flock deployments, removals, and resistance.

https://HaveIBeenFlocked.com — Quick check to see if Flock is watching your neighborhood.

https://DontGetFlocked.com — Plots your route, counts ALPR/Flock cameras, and suggests surveillance-free alternatives.

#flock #surveillance #uspol #police #politics #ai #noai #facialrecognition

Now that the CEO of Flock has called deflock.me a terrorist organization, I'd hate for other people to know about these other flock watchdog groups.

Please don't go on these websites, I beg you.

https://Alpr.wtf - Every U.S. jurisdiction using ALPR, plus how to file info requests.

https://EyesOnFlock.com - Crowdsourced map of Flock cameras and city contracts.

https://Deflock.me - Nationwide ALPR map tracking Flock deployments, removals, and resistance.

https://HaveIBeenFlocked.com — Quick check to see if Flock is watching your neighborhood.

https://DontGetFlocked.com — Plots your route, counts ALPR/Flock cameras, and suggests surveillance-free alternatives.

#flock #surveillance #uspol #police #politics #ai #noai #facialrecognition

Here’s the Truth About Whether #Meta’s #NameTag Face Recognition Tech ‘Exists’

https://www.wired.com/story/heres-the-truth-about-whether-metas-nametag-face-recognition-exists/

#FRT #privacy #FacialRecognition

Here’s the Truth About Whether #Meta’s #NameTag Face Recognition Tech ‘Exists’

https://www.wired.com/story/heres-the-truth-about-whether-metas-nametag-face-recognition-exists/

#FRT #privacy #FacialRecognition

Hitachi and Tobu Railway have introduced a facial recognition system at ticket gates at Ikebukuro Station in Tokyo's Toshima Ward. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2026/07/16/companies/japan-train-station-facial-recognition/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #business #companies #facialrecognition #ikebukuro #rail #toburailway

Hitachi and Tobu Railway have introduced a facial recognition system at ticket gates at Ikebukuro Station in Tokyo's Toshima Ward. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2026/07/16/companies/japan-train-station-facial-recognition/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #business #companies #facialrecognition #ikebukuro #rail #toburailway

RE: https://aus.social/@firstdogonthemoon/116922929672414469

2/n

➡️ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2026/jul/15/perverts-of-the-world-rejoice-its-metas-new-dodgy-old-mate-glasses
—First Dog on the Moon (@firstdogonthemoon), #TheGuardian

#Smartglasses #Surveillance #Creeps #Jerks #AI #Meta #Facebook #Google #FacialRecognition #Europe #GDPR #Society #Respect #Democracy

RE: https://aus.social/@firstdogonthemoon/116922929672414469

2/n

➡️ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2026/jul/15/perverts-of-the-world-rejoice-its-metas-new-dodgy-old-mate-glasses
—First Dog on the Moon (@firstdogonthemoon), #TheGuardian

#Smartglasses #Surveillance #Creeps #Jerks #AI #Meta #Facebook #Google #FacialRecognition #Europe #GDPR #Society #Respect #Democracy

Perverts of the world rejoice! It’s Meta’s new dodgy old mate glasses | First Dog on the Moon https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2026/jul/15/perverts-of-the-world-rejoice-its-metas-new-dodgy-old-mate-glasses #Meta #Technology #FacialRecognition #Surveillance

Perverts of the world rejoice! It’s Meta’s new dodgy old mate glasses | First Dog on the Moon https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2026/jul/15/perverts-of-the-world-rejoice-its-metas-new-dodgy-old-mate-glasses #Meta #Technology #FacialRecognition #Surveillance

Perverts of the world rejoice! It’s Meta’s new dodgy old mate glasses | First Dog on the Moon
By First Dog on the Moon

Undetectable, always on and always sending data back to Pervert Headquarters

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2026/jul/15/perverts-of-the-world-rejoice-its-metas-new-dodgy-old-mate-glasses

#Meta #Technology #Facialrecognition #Surveillance #TheGuardian #FirstDogontheMoon

Perverts of the world rejoice! It’s Meta’s new dodgy old mate glasses | First Dog on the Moon
By First Dog on the Moon

Undetectable, always on and always sending data back to Pervert Headquarters

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2026/jul/15/perverts-of-the-world-rejoice-its-metas-new-dodgy-old-mate-glasses

#Meta #Technology #Facialrecognition #Surveillance #TheGuardian #FirstDogontheMoon

KI-Brillen: So stellt sich Meta #Gesichtserkennung vor | heise online https://www.heise.de/news/Kamerabrillen-So-stellt-sich-Meta-Gesichtserkennung-vor-11362762.html #FacialRecognition #Datenschutz #privacy #Biometrie #biometrics #SmartGlasses

KI-Brillen: So stellt sich Meta #Gesichtserkennung vor | heise online https://www.heise.de/news/Kamerabrillen-So-stellt-sich-Meta-Gesichtserkennung-vor-11362762.html #FacialRecognition #Datenschutz #privacy #Biometrie #biometrics #SmartGlasses

#Reminder Amnesty says Israeli authorities deployed “Red Wolf” facial recognition at Hebron checkpoints—scanning Palestinians’ faces without consent, enrolling them in databases, and automating movement restrictions. The report “Automated Apartheid” argues this surveillance entrenches apartheid. 🚨🤖 #HumanRights #FacialRecognition https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/05/israel-opt-israeli-authorities-are-using-facial-recognition-technology-to-entrench-apartheid/

#Reminder Amnesty says Israeli authorities deployed “Red Wolf” facial recognition at Hebron checkpoints—scanning Palestinians’ faces without consent, enrolling them in databases, and automating movement restrictions. The report “Automated Apartheid” argues this surveillance entrenches apartheid. 🚨🤖 #HumanRights #FacialRecognition https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/05/israel-opt-israeli-authorities-are-using-facial-recognition-technology-to-entrench-apartheid/

Alarm over launch of #FacialRecognition in #UK shops that instantly alerts #police

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/10/facewatch-facial-recognition-uk-shops-instantly-alerts-police-civil-liberties

#privacy #surveillance #FRT

Alarm over launch of #FacialRecognition in #UK shops that instantly alerts #police

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/10/facewatch-facial-recognition-uk-shops-instantly-alerts-police-civil-liberties

#privacy #surveillance #FRT

#SanFranciscans will want to know this

#SanFrancisco #GroceryOutlet stores are using #AIFacialSurveillance

#MissionLocal

https://missionlocal.org/2026/07/sf-grocery-outlet-facial-recognition/

#Tech #FacialRecognition #Groceries #Surveillance #USpol

#SanFranciscans will want to know this

#SanFrancisco #GroceryOutlet stores are using #AIFacialSurveillance

#MissionLocal

https://missionlocal.org/2026/07/sf-grocery-outlet-facial-recognition/

#Tech #FacialRecognition #Groceries #Surveillance #USpol

"Entrenching a climate of surveillance across public life."

"People’s faces being scanned without consent and being added to lists is worrying enough, but the speed which Facewatch technology now makes it possible for someone to encounter the police force in the middle of their daily shop is a really dangerous escalation."

🗣️ Sarah Lasoye for ORG.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/10/facewatch-facial-recognition-uk-shops-instantly-alerts-police-civil-liberties

#facialrecognition #surveillance #policing #privacy #ukpolitics #ukpol

"Entrenching a climate of surveillance across public life."

"People’s faces being scanned without consent and being added to lists is worrying enough, but the speed which Facewatch technology now makes it possible for someone to encounter the police force in the middle of their daily shop is a really dangerous escalation."

🗣️ Sarah Lasoye for ORG.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/10/facewatch-facial-recognition-uk-shops-instantly-alerts-police-civil-liberties

#facialrecognition #surveillance #policing #privacy #ukpolitics #ukpol

#FacialRecognition in #UK Shops Will Soon Instantly Alert #Police About Offenders
#ai #privacy #surveillance #security #biometrics

https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/07/12/0259226/facial-recognition-in-uk-shops-will-soon-instantly-alert-police-about-offenders?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

#FacialRecognition in #UK Shops Will Soon Instantly Alert #Police About Offenders
#ai #privacy #surveillance #security #biometrics

https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/07/12/0259226/facial-recognition-in-uk-shops-will-soon-instantly-alert-police-about-offenders?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

:meme_catto: Alarm over launch of facial recognition in UK shops that instantly alerts police // The Guardian

“The idea of calling the police on somebody who hasn’t committed a crime, but there’s a concern they might, is really upending the way we do things. And of course, it’s not infallible. These systems do make mistakes, and it’s very hard to argue with that when it happens to you.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/10/facewatch-facial-recognition-uk-shops-instantly-alerts-police-civil-liberties

#facialrecognition #uk #privacy #civilliberties

:meme_catto: Alarm over launch of facial recognition in UK shops that instantly alerts police // The Guardian

“The idea of calling the police on somebody who hasn’t committed a crime, but there’s a concern they might, is really upending the way we do things. And of course, it’s not infallible. These systems do make mistakes, and it’s very hard to argue with that when it happens to you.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/10/facewatch-facial-recognition-uk-shops-instantly-alerts-police-civil-liberties

#facialrecognition #uk #privacy #civilliberties