http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/06/facial_recognition_privacy_talks_why_i_walked_out.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_top

Why I Walked Out of Facial Recognition Negotiations

Industry lobbying is shutting down Washington’s ability to protect consumer privacy

June 2, 2015, was a great day for privacy. June 16 was not.

On June 2, the Senate voted to pass the USA Freedom Act—an imperfect bill that is nonetheless the most significant reform to NSA surveillance in a generation. That night, President Obama signed it into law.

On June 16, consumer privacy advocates walked out of talks to set voluntary rules for companies that use facial recognition technology. They explained that they were withdrawing from the talks because industry would not agree to critical privacy protections. I was one of those advocates.

There is a growing divide in Americans’ right to privacy. As checks strengthen on government surveillance, tech companies are evading even basic limits on their ability to collect, share, and monetize your data. At the heart of this divide is an increasingly formidable force: industry lobbying.

Facial recognition lets companies identify you by name, from far away, and in secret. There’s little you can do to stop it. You can’t change your fingerprints or the unique dimensions of your face—not easily. And while you leave your fingerprints on only the things you touch, every time you step outside, your face appears, ready for analysis, in the video feeds and photographs of any camera pointing your way.

And there are more of those cameras than ever before. A company aptly named FaceFirst sells technology that lets businesses identify VIP customers, suspected shoplifters, and “known litigious individuals” the moment they walk into a store. Another company, Churchix, sells facial recognition systems that let churches track who is attending their services. (And no, they don’t tell their parishioners about it.)

Since early 2014 the Department of Commerce has sought to develop voluntary privacy rules for companies that use this technology. So for 16 months, consumer privacy advocates (including me) and industry representatives met in a low-lit, circular room two blocks from the White House, looking for a compromise.

At our last meeting, privacy advocates proposed that in general—there would be exceptions—companies should get consumers’ permission before using facial recognition to identify them. This may seem like a matter of basic fairness. Yet trade groups representing the country’s leading tech companies, advertisers, and retailers rejected the proposal. Representatives from Facebook and Microsoft rejected it, too. (After the walkout, Microsoft partially changed course, saying it would support an opt-in rule if that were the consensus.)

So we asked a narrower hypothetical: Suppose you’re walking down a public street—not private property—and a company you’ve never heard of would like to use facial recognition to identify you by name. We asked whether there were any trade groups or companies in the room that would agree that in this case, consent was necessary. The answer was unanimous: silence.

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We are so screwed.

Don't even know where start in listing how.