So I just had to explain to my mother the whole flock system and why that's bad,
Government skirting privacy laws,
we are the product and consumer,
stories like the texas abortion one point to a slowly growing mass amalgamation of a profile of your entire life, where you go, what you search, and what you consume.
Which leads even further into the fact that they do store and sell your facial data, basically turning your entire personhood into a commodity.
So I walked away and then it hit me.
So Flock was sold as a simple way of identifying vehicles and to supporting police, but we had cameras that did that at every tollbooth in the early 90's. I swear it hit like a train, the goalposts have been moved so far that I had forgotten we always had the technology to scan license plates. I was literally explaining the technology unprecendentances and the fear of what the state might do with that much info and talking about our right to privacy. I had totally forgot that 10 years ago I'd have just said "we already have those, why is the government spending so much bullshit money on this?"