A much more serious situation will arise when convenience stores, gas stations, and the like adopt the same camera systems--maybe they already are--and begin to compile customer dossiers, purchasing preferences, etc. Insofar as monitoring passage of people, I noted a few hours ago a new installation of cameras at the tollbooths on the George Washington Bridge, positioned to be under a meter from people's faces when they stop to fork over their $4.00. The police density at this toll plaza makes additional surveillance of would-be toll booth robbers unnecessary; while traffic analysis on the matching of facial patterns is probably out of their scope right now, it *is* a precedent, and food for thought... (Cameras in concenience stores, BTW, are entirely normal around here. FYI, the George Washington Bridge carries much, probably most, of the traffic into Manhattan and New York City...) andrew m. boardman amb@cs.columbia.edu