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comment by kleinbl00

I suspect that there's an economic angle whereby you could make this entire industry unprofitable.

Commercialization of someone's likeness requires written consent. In lieu of written consent, the agency capturing that likeness must post signage indicating that a public area is being filmed and that use of that public area implies consent to commercialize your likeness. This is the law as it has been for a hundred or more years; it is the underpinning of motion pictures and their commercialization.

You could certainly argue that law enforcement is not subject to the same economic pressures as motion pictures but you could more easily argue that a third-party vendor consolidating imagery for use by law enforcement is not law enforcement but a commercial enterprise. Further, the argument for the "this area is being filmed" notices is that it is difficult if not impossible to locate and gain consent from everyone in the frame; nonetheless, PAs are stationed around perimeters with clipboards to release up everyone whose face might be recognizable because lawsuits from those who walked past the signs but didn't sign a release are legend.

The very existence of this software nullifies the "they were too hard to track down" argument.

Existing case law could very well provide legal recourse. "I am in the database, you are profiting off of it, therefore you are profiting off my likeness without my permission." A good class-action lawsuit could force companies such as this to obtain written permission from every single person in the database and, as the surveillance company has no economic leverage they would have to offer compensation. The question then becomes "how many people will give up their privacy forever for a $5 Amazon gift card."

As to law enforcement, I believe any official use of your likeness for purposes of law enforcement has been through the courts before. I suspect this is an Uber-like case where the law is clear, they're just front-running it. A civil suit could probably force any police department to disclose their use of tools like this as well as the names and likenesses of all those who request it. $5 per user might not seem like a lot but if the whole point of your database is that it's exhaustive, getting 70% of the population of St. Cloud is gonna cost the St. Cloud PD $250k (plus whatever the company is selling their database for).

Striking this stuff down would basically make the entertainment industry unprofitable. They would no longer be able to protect their IP. There would likely be substantial representation from the media companies because this is the sort of precedent that could make their businesses extinct. They do not play.