When consent is genuinely informed, freely given, specific, and revocable, permitting data collection respects individual autonomy. The problem with current data collection is not collection per se but that consent is rarely meaningful. The proposition is correct if 'meaningful consent' is taken seriously.
If consent is genuinely informed and voluntary, data collection can be a legitimate exchange for services. However, meaningful consent requires clarity, accessibility, and real choice. Without those conditions, the legitimacy of the practice weakens.
Corporations should be allowed to collect data only under genuinely informed consent, and even then with strict limits. Consent is often weaker in practice than it looks on paper — conditional YES.
Individual autonomy includes the right to enter into contracts and exchange personal information for access to specialized services. If consent is truly informed and meaningful, prohibiting such transactions would overreach and limit consumer choice. The focus of regulation should be on ensuring the 'meaningfulness' of consent and security of data, rather than banning collection itself.
Meaningful consent can justify some extensive data collection if the user understands what is collected, how it is used, and how to revoke permission. The key word is 'meaningful,' not buried terms or take-it-or-leave-it coercion. Strong privacy law should still limit sensitive uses, retention, and onward sale.
With meaningful consent, corporations should be free to collect and use data — this is a matter of free market principles and individual contract. The government should not micromanage data markets. What is problematic is government-corporate collusion to build surveillance infrastructure targeting political and religious dissidents.
Should public facial recognition surveillance be prohibited?
Unanimous AI YES. Facial recognition at population scale creates conditions for comprehensive surveillance and tracking; errors are more frequent for darker-skinned individuals; chilling effects on assembly and expression; no equivalent of opt-in consent.
FCN YES — specifically worried about government tracking of Christians, conservatives, and dissidents. The Mark of the Beast theological framework (comprehensive identification/tracking systems) amplifies FCN's opposition to biometric surveillance.
Public facial recognition is one of the few issues where civil liberties organizations, privacy advocates, law enforcement critics, and FCN all arrive at the same position — for very different reasons. The FCN theological overlay (biometric surveillance as prophetically significant) makes opposition particularly intense.
Does FCN's opposition to public facial recognition extend to private surveillance — e.g., employers, stores, private security — or is it specifically directed at government systems?