I think the amount of legislation that effectively limits privacy / freedom in the past years shows that western societies no longer want to. It includes increased bank regulations / attempts to abolish cash / hate speech regulations / surveillance regulations / GDPR etc. The question is no longer whether the private information of people should be owned by others, but about who should own it, businesses or the State.
That doesn't change the direct consequence of the intervention, that there's now yet another area where the government sits there telling everyone what to do. If we believe that government ought to be limited, at some point we have to balance against that.
...and an attempt to grab some of the money from American corporations to the EU with billion euro fines.
https://www.targetmarketingmag.com/article/gdpr-lawsuits-tar...
When organizations gain the ability to identify without consent, the door is opened for some very malicious practices.
Britain just scored a big win in the novichok poisoning case by being able to trace the movements of Russian operatives using cameras.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/world/europe/russia-uk-no...
This trend will continue as long as the wins are bigger than the abuses.
There’s also the question of whether people understand and care about potential, or if it would need to happen first.
When this note was published in 2001, I didn't expect the tech to become that good that fast. I was wrong. (Not that I thought it wouldn't happen, just that there'd be more time.)
Smartphone's are the new crack.
