A simple boundary travels well
Civil-liberties groups including the ACLU have warned about the prospect of facial recognition built into wearable devices. The concern is easy to understand: a person moving through ordinary life should not have to assume that a stranger can identify them without their knowledge.
That boundary matters in public, but it also matters in semi-public places. Shops, apartment buildings, waiting rooms, campuses, and workplaces all involve people who may be visible without expecting to be profiled.
The harm is not limited to a database error
Misidentification is a serious problem, especially when it affects someone in a high-stakes setting. But even an accurate match can be harmful when it exposes a person to unwanted contact, intimidation, or a loss of practical anonymity.
A policy that focuses only on accuracy misses the larger issue. The question is whether it should be normal for someone to turn a passing face into a name, a search result, or a record without notice.
Rules should protect the bystander first
A meaningful approach would limit use in sensitive places, require clear accountability for organisations, and avoid treating consent as something that can be assumed because a person is in public.
The request preserves a form of everyday freedom: being present without being quietly converted into someone else's lookup result.