Bruce Schneier is mistaken in claiming that there is no important difference between face recognition and other kinds of surveillance systems.

The error starts in the article's first line: "The whole point of modern surveillance is to treat people differently," referring specifically to commerce. That is only one of the points of modern surveillance: repression of dissidents, whistleblowers and journalists is another. The article's reasoning simply doesn't address that.

Face recognition is especially dangerous for this because it is especially hard to avoid. It is not hard to leave a portable phones (if you have one) home one day, and pay cash for travel and food that day. But it is very hard to avoid face recognition and license plate recognition. Therefore, those two types of surveillance pose a special danger to political freedom.