The thing is, most western governments are pushing towards facial recognition and monitoring without the need for a warrant. Most countries are already stacked up to the eyeballs with CCTV (UK for example, and hooking that in with facial recognition is dangerous). First they start off with it being for terrorists, then paedophiles, then other criminals, but ultimately, it’s monitoring everyone to track down a few. When you have that infra in place, and you don’t have sufficient oversight, you can soon tweak that towards activist groups, then opposition groups etc.
You have to challenge it before the infrastructure goes in, because after it’s in, it’s already too late.
While that is all true, it’s effectively saying nothing more than, “The misuse of a technology is unethical.” Which I think we can all agree on. So many people are pointing out obvious examples of abuse as arguments against the tech itself.
The original question was only about the technology itself. Which is only an interesting etical question if we assume, using it appropriately.
The thing is, most western governments are pushing towards facial recognition and monitoring without the need for a warrant. Most countries are already stacked up to the eyeballs with CCTV (UK for example, and hooking that in with facial recognition is dangerous). First they start off with it being for terrorists, then paedophiles, then other criminals, but ultimately, it’s monitoring everyone to track down a few. When you have that infra in place, and you don’t have sufficient oversight, you can soon tweak that towards activist groups, then opposition groups etc.
You have to challenge it before the infrastructure goes in, because after it’s in, it’s already too late.
While that is all true, it’s effectively saying nothing more than, “The misuse of a technology is unethical.” Which I think we can all agree on. So many people are pointing out obvious examples of abuse as arguments against the tech itself.
The original question was only about the technology itself. Which is only an interesting etical question if we assume, using it appropriately.