Public photos aren't consent for biometric search

Strong take. The best boundary here is not just “was it public?” but “what new power does the system create, for whom, and under what constraints?”

• –Purpose limitation matters more than raw accessibility: a public birthday photo is not implicit consent for face search.
• –Biometric conversion is the real escalation point because it turns ordinary media into persistent identity infrastructure.
• –Audit logs and lawful-process requirements are the minimum guardrails if such systems exist at all.
• –Provenance and deletion rights are essential because inclusion in a face database is not a neutral or reversible act.
• –Commercial sale and law-enforcement access are separate fault lines, but both become problematic once the dataset itself was built without consent.