OP here. Not going to disagree about folks underestimating where the real danger is. But the fear of photography is not unfounded. There are many examples of people suffering from being captured in public settings. Sometimes it is because of their behavior (every "Karen" video), sometimes it is an abuser getting a lead on their ex's location from a tagged Facebook pic. For this project I tried to make sure that I didn't "feature" anyone, so attention was diluted across thousands of photos. When I eventually exhibited the work, I worked with a watercolor artist to create paintings from the photos to further disconnect the work from the customer's identity.