At 04:39 AM 7/24/00 -0400, Tom Vogt wrote:
>David Honig wrote:
>> >there's a difference between this and a database system. almost all laws
>> >on privacy (where such exist) realize that.
>>
>> Really? What's to stop me from 'gargoyling' (to use a _snow crash_ term):
>> running a few VCRs on my surroundings as I wander in public, later indexing
>> the faces and conversations I picked up? And then offering a service in
>> which you submit a face, I'll tell you where I've seen it.
>
>said difference? namely the one between manual and automatic data
>processing.
That's the implementation detail I'm varying in this gedankenexperiment,
but since when does implementation matter for law/morality?
What if I've got an eidetic memory and 20/10 vision?
that said, I think your example is a good one on the
>borderline between personal data (which is protected, at least in the
>civilized world) and unpersonal data (which is public domain). a face
>alone is not, as I read the law, a piece of personal data.
Anything you can see or hear from the street is public domain.
(in my recollection of US law)
Telescopes are supposedly invasive; but an optical zoom on a
videocamera is pretty compact.
