For two decades, the privacy conversation has been about the data we generate online. Cookies, trackers, opt-outs, consent banners. The framework is imperfect, but it exists. You can express a preference. Sometimes systems honor it.
When an autonomous vehicle drives past your home, it captures you, your children, and your license plate. When a delivery robot rolls down your sidewalk, it records every face it passes. When a humanoid robot enters a coffee shop, it perceives everyone inside. None of these systems ask. None offer an opt-out. There is no protocol for no, for yes but not stored, for yes but never shared, or for the settings between.
The standard defenses — that human-machine coordination is too hard to standardize, that public space carries no expectation of privacy, that the data is needed for safety — are deferrals, not answers. The hard part is solvable. The public-space argument was written for human observers, not fleets with perfect memory. And collecting data is not the same as keeping it.
Every machine that perceives you should give you the chance to opt in or opt out. A two-way privacy handshake between humans and autonomous systems would bridge that gap. Every networked system has eventually needed a consent layer. Physical-space machines are next.
Perception consent is the principle that people in physical space should be able to express preferences about how machines perceive, record, and learn from them — and that machines should be designed to read and honor those preferences. It is Do Not Track for physical space. It is the missing layer in every regulatory conversation about AI in public.
The cost of building consent is small. The cost of not building it is paid by everyone who will be recorded, stored, and learned from in perpetuity. The asymmetry is the argument. The industry's blindness to it is the opportunity.
Griffin Leggett is an inventor with a patent-pending portfolio covering autonomous system privacy, perception consent protocols, and AV robustness testing. Contact: griffin@griffin-leggett.com