Conversation

Y’all know self-driving rideshares are rolling surveillance machines, right?

You think they’re not going to operate license plate/facial recognition readers on these rolling camera outfits? There’s money to be made selling video footage and search access into this data to “law enforcement”. Selling #surveillance is how these things will continue to make money even without passengers inside.

If they haven’t monetized this access already, they will. There is zero reason to expect that they won’t. Because money. Because it happens every time.

Will we regulate this? Will we prevent abuses? Or will we let it roll out like we let every other privately-owned surveillance tech roll out until the public lashes back?

#cars #robotaxi

Article from 2022: https://sfist.com/2022/05/12/report-sfpd-already-using-surveillance-video-from-self-driving-cars/