> unless you wear a full face mask, change your walking gait, and just about every habit you have, there is no escape
If you’re driving a car, yes. As we saw with Mangione’s escape, if you’re on public transit you’re much more anonymous. (Given the public risks inherent to driving, I think this is a fair trade—off.)
There are cameras all over public transit systems. License plates are easier to track (they have a known font so identifying a unique one is easier that a face), but not by enough to matter. If you leave one camera you will show up in the next and soon they get enough of a profile to identify you if they want to.
They frequently don’t work [1]. Again, we have a real-life example of someone using the reality of how surveillance is weighted to escape Manhattan, one of the more surveilled parts of the country.
While I agree with your point about public transit being a bit more anonymous, I feel I should point out that a. Mangione was still captured, and b. thanks (allegedly) to a combination of multiple surveillance photos of him with a mask plus a single picture of his full face.
If you’re driving a car, yes. As we saw with Mangione’s escape, if you’re on public transit you’re much more anonymous. (Given the public risks inherent to driving, I think this is a fair trade—off.)