> how did it become ok to be recorded at all times without prior consent??

Incrementally, apathetically and often to gleeful offerings of tinfoil hats to those who pointed out previous steps and extrapolated them forth.

First they filmed the celebrities, then the politicians, then the cops, then came the ring cameras. It was a slow erosion over decades, the justification drifting from "they are a public figure" to "they are standing near me"

I never knew why the paparazzi could harass celebrities and a few decades later we are all being secretly filmed for a Meta perv database.

A major factor is that the companies pushing for this technology are spending significant resources into making sure your consent isn't relevant. From this article [1] about Meta and smart glasses:

> Five years ago, Facebook shut down the facial recognition system for tagging people in photos on its social network, saying it wanted to find “the right balance” for a technology that raises privacy and legal concerns. Now it wants to bring facial recognition back.

> (…) The Silicon Valley company has been conferring since early last year about how to release a feature that carries “safety and privacy risks,” according to an internal document viewed by The New York Times. (…) Meta’s internal memo said the political tumult in the United States was good timing for the feature’s release.

> “We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns,” according to the document from Meta’s Reality Labs, which works on hardware including smart glasses.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/technology/meta-facial-re... or https://archive.is/65Fze