I agree it's a legal matter, but completely illegal is not realistic. What's needed is a legal/privacy framework that addresses these new technologies. Unfortunately, I have zero faith in the law makers to understand the technology enough to really do anything meaningful. Instead, we will probably have to wait for a SCOTUS case at some point in the future to define the legal side.
Laws cannot stop a technology that is easily availabe, like number plate scanning or face recognition. Nothing can stop it.
You might just as well outlaw knives (they are in fact illegal in many European countries, which has done nothing about their easy availability, and software will be far easier to acquire than knives)
> Laws cannot stop a technology that is easily availabe, like number plate scanning or face recognition. Nothing can stop it.
Which is why I said that completely illegal is not realistic. What laws can do is provide a scope and framework on how technology is used. Data retention, sampling, court admissibility, etc... are all pieces that can be argued and adjusted to fit with new technology. But, like I also said above, I don't have faith that current law makers understand technology enough to make any of these laws. It will take some overreach cases that end up in SCOTUS to get anything done.
> You might just as well outlaw knives
Using knives in a certain way (stabbing someone for example) is against the law. Using this new technology in certain ways could also be against law.
Face recognition and plate scanning are orders of magnitude more complex than knives, which have been around for ~1,400,000 years. Kids can (and do) make knives with random material they find. Effectively 0% of adults can make face recognition or plate scanning systems.
Also laws do work in these scenarios: look at the difference between US and Israeli security practices and you'll see dramatically different laws in effect.
