Just watched The Truman Show. It finishes with a happy ending making it clear that he's going to get the girl he picked out for himself instead of the rather attractive one he was being set up with. Lucky him.
Except I suspect he will be surprised to discover there are far more cameras trained on him outside Truman world (if that's what you call it) than there were inside. And outside he's just another smuck, to be abused and have his privacy denied.
Maybe he could try an experiment. How about this one? Visit one of those supermarkets where you can see your face on screen as you check out the goods in your shopping basket.
Most days you will be able to make a contactless payment. But if you visit on a rainy day with your hood up, suddenly contactless is not good enough. You have to enter your passcode.
But what does it matter? It matters because what this means is that the supermarket is not just recording you, it is identifying you and matching up your face with your card details.
When the computer system behind the screen can not find your face in its database (because you are wearing a hood or a hat or some such thing) it adds an extra layer of security.
So the machine knows you. Knows when and where you shop. And it makes decisions based on this knowledge.
Who cares? I doubt if you do because when privacy is invaded like this you probably assume its someone else's privacy not yours. After all why would anyone invade your privacy?
The answer is they do it because they can.
The article names a security company called Facewatch which claims on its web site to have all sorts of approvals for facial recognition software but does not seem to mention data protection (digital images are data just as much as text).
The article says Big Brother Watch has made a data protection complaint.
The illustration below shows the latest Big Brother Watch Twitter (or X) post stating that face recognition software is going to be used on the crowd at one of the London football matches.
Jonathan Brind