Exactly! In a public space, you can expect someone to be collecting data about you, even if it's only photographing you in the background. In a private space, you expect no one to be collecting data about you, except the people you are directly interacting with.
Aren't there some wiretapping laws around this sort of thing?
I'm not willingly giving up any information by being in a public space, because I don't have any choice about being in public spaces. Any information people gain about me is being taken, not given freely.
> I don't think going online is an optional activity either.
I think that can be debated, but let's say you're right: that just reinforces my point.
My essential point is that the "public space" argument isn't terribly meaningful. Actual consent can only be given in the absence of coercion. If being surveilled is a requirement in order to simply function as a human being, then consent doesn't enter into it.
And, in my view, all of the arguments about privacy and spying hinge on the issue of consent. If data is being gathered about me without my consent, then I'm being spied on.
If you're in public, you have no expectation of privacy.
People keep saying that in this debate, as if it's some sort of self-evident principle that must not be questioned, but is it anything more than a meaningless tautology? Aren't you in public by definition in places where you have no privacy? If so, then being in public is defined by how we define privacy.
The public/private distinction has never been absolute, such that everything about you and what you're doing is either in public or in private at any given time. We're sharing our thoughts on a public forum on the Internet, but at least one of us is physically sitting in his own home while doing so. I have different expectations of privacy for what I'm saying on HN vs. the conversation I just had with someone in this room.
The lines are similarly blurred if we go out. For example, in most jurisdictions you do not give up all rights to privacy just because you went out your front door. If a guy follows you around with a video camera and tries to watch you enter security details when you're paying for stuff at a shop, he's probably going to get in trouble. If a public venue installs video cameras in its bathrooms or changing rooms, it's probably going to get in trouble. If some pervert tries to film up your or your wife's/sister's/daughter's skirt, he's probably going to get in a lot of trouble. These things are all easily possible with technology, and all happen in a "public place", yet I think almost everyone would still consider them unacceptable invasions of privacy and the law in many places would prohibit such behaviour.
Maybe as technology that can be used for surveillance and data mining evolves, we need to evolve our understanding of what should be considered private as well, in order to maintain effective protection of the same underlying values. If metadata alone can now be used to determine sensitive details about us that we would consider to be private if collected directly, then perhaps the collection and use of that metadata should be controlled in the same ways as direct collection and use of the implicit data. If sensitive data is collected for one purpose with consent but can now be repurposed more easily for additional uses, maybe there need to be explicit safeguards to control that risk.
I feel like this is a very common delusion, the expectation of privacy when going into public.
It's like public photography. Some folks get really upset if their photo is taken out in public without consent, but those folks were out in public so zero expectation of privacy. Same exact thing for the Internet.
The “expectation of privacy” isn’t about what you would expect regular people to do. It’s about what you would expect malicious actors like spies (or just private detectives hired to tail you) to do. You wouldn’t expect to be safe from a detective with a boom mic in the public square—therefore, the square is not a place where you should be having private conversations (even whispered) if you have anything to hide.
Hmm, yea privacy in public is an interesting thought. I don’t think its ridiculous to say you should have _some_ privacy, even in a public space. It feels like the expectation is that you can be physically seen, but beyond that I don’t see how someone loses all facets of privacy, unless you’re assuming a surveillance-state.
You have a messed-up idea of privacy, there can be various degrees of it and having a few people see you in a certain place at a certain time has a slightly different impact than having someone (potentially) analyze what you do in a large amount of your life, even if that happens in "public spaces".
I know your idea is the same as that of the USA law, but that really doesn't make it right
There is no expectation of privacy in public places in the US. Not sure of Canada has the same norm. Now that said just because you can collect data does not mean should should--there's a wide range for good and evil here.
> Because when you are in a public place, you cannot expect privacy.
There's a difference though, between expecting the public to witness one's own actions in that very moment, and having everyone, at any time, forever, being able to replay a recording of that moment.
The latter is something only public figures, and only in their public role, should have to expect.
You have no expectation of privacy in a public space. Its the reason I can record you all day if I want.
People don't understand this (clearly). Most of us just choose not to record others because we don't give a shit about you, or have any sort of vested interest in you.
>Too bad, I say. Because when you are in a public place, you cannot expect privacy.
Says who?
We had quite a lot of privacy in public spaces before everybody and his dog yielded a cameraphone.
Privacy is not a binary ("oh, since you can be seen by people passing by in public anyway, it means you don't have any privacy") -- it's a spectrum. You could still be OK with people seeing you, but not with being photographed AND tagged automatically (e.g. with timestamp and GPS from a friend's phone) AND posted online AND indexed and available for anybody in the world to search for your name/pictures in perpetuity...
None of that makes it less of an invasion of privacy. Taking a picture of a car in public is probably fine, but intentionally building a database of my movements over time just in case I do something bad is stalkerish and creepy.
If you are in public you are being looked at I do not understand your logic. When you go in a public place there are already public accessible web cams that people use to track this kind of thing i remember a thesis that used public accessible cams to try and track people and build up a database. I have always had the opinion you lose privacy when you leave your house since you are in public, and public like is opposite of private/privacy so to me it makes sense.
I do not expect privacy in a public place. But I do expect that not everything I do is recorded and then associated with my name on the Internet. But this is exactly the direction smartphones have taken us.
I don't know if you have the same feeling but I do notice a chilling effect in how I behave when I see that someone has their phone out and its camera is pointed approximately in my direction (although they might be checking messages).
If some person was able to pick me out from a lineup because they physically saw me then that wasn't private and privacy laws don't apply.
So for instance capturing my face on CCTV in a public place isn't a privacy violation, same with my license plate in a pulic place.
However what happens on my private property is a privacy violation if it is recorded without consent.
Certian information isn't private, and that being stored is fine. Where the line gets drawn is what's up for debate.
I surely would want my contact details and name saved by a company that I intend to do business with in either direction. However if they spam me with information I should be able to lodge an harrassment claim against them. It's not a privacy issue but a decency issue.
The world view is that what happens in public space is not private; you can't expect privacy for things you do in public.
If you go to a public concert, people can look at you, note that you were here and tell that to others. That doesn't violate privacy because you had no privacy there to begin with. And in a similar manner, if you drove last thursday on a particular road, whoever bothered to look at you and your car is allowed to do so, note that you were there, write it down and tell that to others.
Privacy is about your private stuff - what you do in your private space, what you have in your private items. If you go out in the public, the things that you do (and where, and when, and with whom) are not private anymore.
Aren't there some wiretapping laws around this sort of thing?
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