> People have the right to take in what is in public

You write this as if it is a fundamental human right. I disagree. I could imagine this could be treated differently in different cultures. As an example, Google Maps has heavily censored their Street View in Germany to scrub any personal info (including faces). Another common issue that is handled very differently in different cultures: How to control video recording in public places.

> Google Maps has heavily censored their Street View in Germany to scrub any personal info

I remember when this first launched in the UK, automated face-scrubbing was in place. It was about 90% accurate on scrubbing faces from pictures. One of its best screwups was showing people's faces as they were standing outside a branch of KFC but blurring out the Colonel.

>You write this as if it is a fundamental human right. I disagree.

It's more common sense than any real sense of law. If something is a public space, how do you stop people from "taking it in"?

Recording is a different matter, but people existing is what comprises the "public".

> how do you stop people from "taking it in"

Please take a moment to draw for us detailed faces of all the people you've "taken in" today while you were outside. Use a sketch artist if you need to. Now compare those results with what you'd have if you did the same with a photocamera. And for good measure, add in the amount of effort it took you to recall, and the effort it will take you to describe to every reader on HN who you saw today.

Do you really not see any difference between the human process and what a digital camera can do?

I think we're agreeing but our frequencies are mixed. I was just saying "you can't stop people from using their eyes in public".photography and recording laws are very different.

for more context, the chain started with this:

>People have the right to take in what is in public, but maybe cameras should not?

and then the direct reply disagreed with this notion. I just wanted to distinguish between "taking in" and cameras, because it appears that user made a similar mistake.

I dunno - I think there are uses of surveillance in pursuit of enforcing laws that I don't think are harmful. Like...maybe you can record the public and pass it on to the police when there's a specific request for a time and place that a crime was allegedly committed? Like - if an organization has a legitimate interest in what happened there you can pass on your recording. But you can't just sell it to some random data broker, because they don't have a specific reason to want a recording of that place at that time.