You are conflating extremely different things, and that is dangerous.

Somehow we went from:

1. People can see and hear your in public

2. Therefore public places are not private

3. Therefore people can record you

4. Therefore it's okay to build a network of cameras that can track and query every place you have ever been

The problem has always been on step 2. The assumption that "public places are not private" anymore just because everyone can record you and post it on TikTok. In reality before smartphones public places were extremely private compared to being broadcast to the entire planet.