But these cameras have been around for 30+ years, including in the US. Why is it suddenly in the news.

The cameras don't track me either. They track a car. They have no idea who is driving the car.

> If it were released that everyone's ring cameras were being fed into some NSA program running facial recognition to track citizens movement I'm sure they would be upset about that too

That's the interesting bit, how did ANPR get into the US public consciousness now, rather than over a decade ago when it started to be used on toll roads