Agreed that data is in and of itself neutral. Similar to a gun it is not its use but how it is used that can be detrimental. In fact, this is true of most anything from a pencil to a car.
I think at the core however the issue is not how the data is used but one of ownership and privacy. It is "my" business where I drive. It is "my" business whom I call. It is data about me and my behavior. So to have that information about me used, even if it could be assessed publicly, without any need for consent from me becomes the issue.
License plate readers are tantamount to placing a tail on me. The same with tracking my movements via several CCTV cameras, etc.
Retention just makes the situation worse. Yes, you could approach it with laws of appropriate use of this data but the problem is what about when the laws change. And the data is still there. Similar to how people gave data to Radio Shack years ago to find it now being sold to 3rd parties. Privacy policies are constantly shifting for the companies' best interests. Who can keep track?
The problem is that once the data is collected it is out of your hands. And why the regulations need be at the collection level with strict opt-in requirements as well as the usage and retention level.
True enough. However, it is also the business of the people who are responsible for building and maintaining the roads to know how those roads are being used.
It is "my" business whom I call.
True again. However, it is also the business of the phone company who must provide the service you ordered and to which you will owe money based on the calls you make and, in some cases, who you are calling.
I do understand your concern about data being out there at all. However, the reality is that we interact with the world and the people around us all the time. Sometimes that will result in data that refers to us but also affects other people for legitimate and often unavoidable reasons. So I don't think an extremist position that no-one should ever be able to collect data about you without your explicit consent is ever going to work. As others have noted, that would mean you couldn't interact with almost anyone or anything in the modern world, and unless you're planning to live 100% off-grid as a hermit that's just not a viable possibility. Instead, we should consider issues like the retention and repurposing of data.
Licence plate readers that are automatically tracking cars through a congested area that has variable speed limits are potentially in everyone's interests: smoothing out the traffic flow makes everyone's journey faster and safer, and has basically no downside. However, once a vehicle has left that area, it is no longer necessary to keep any specific details about it for that purpose. The data can be discarded, or completely anonymised simply by turning each plate into a unique but otherwise meaningless number before it's recorded if it's useful to store aggregated data for more general traffic planning purposes. Similarly, if plate recognition is being used for enforcement of that speed limit, there is no need to record the details of anyone except those the system has determined to be exceeding the speed limit, where the evidence will be used for a subsequent prosecution. Once any resulting legal processes have run their course, the data can also then be completely discarded if no conviction resulted.
The risk in either case is not the scanning itself, it is the retention of the data and potentially use for other purposes and correlation with other data sets later. Given robust rules about keeping personal data no longer than necessary for its stated purpose, and probably about declaring its stated purpose in a meaningful and usefully specific way, this is not so much having a tail as having a driver in a car behind who happens to be following you for a while on the same road but then forgets they ever saw you within moments of going your separate ways. I doubt even the most privacy-conscious person would consider that an unreasonable risk in other contexts or expect to be able to prevent it.
I think at the core however the issue is not how the data is used but one of ownership and privacy. It is "my" business where I drive. It is "my" business whom I call. It is data about me and my behavior. So to have that information about me used, even if it could be assessed publicly, without any need for consent from me becomes the issue.
License plate readers are tantamount to placing a tail on me. The same with tracking my movements via several CCTV cameras, etc.
Retention just makes the situation worse. Yes, you could approach it with laws of appropriate use of this data but the problem is what about when the laws change. And the data is still there. Similar to how people gave data to Radio Shack years ago to find it now being sold to 3rd parties. Privacy policies are constantly shifting for the companies' best interests. Who can keep track?
The problem is that once the data is collected it is out of your hands. And why the regulations need be at the collection level with strict opt-in requirements as well as the usage and retention level.