The Cameras Don’t Worry Me. The Files Do.
If you watch a lot of British crime dramas, you eventually begin to suspect that the United Kingdom is covered by an enormous security camera system.
In "Slow Horses" and "Criminal Record," a suspect's movements are routinely reconstructed through CCTV footage. A suspect leaves a train station and a camera catches him. He crosses a street and another camera picks him up. He enters a convenience store, boards a bus, or walks through a parking garage, and there is always another lens waiting.
Many Americans find this unsettling, or at least foreign in the way many British customs feel foreign. They drive on the left side of the road. They eat beans for breakfast. They seem to place cameras on every available lamppost.
There's no expectation of privacy while walking around in public. If I stop at a traffic light in downtown Little Rock, people can see me. The existence of a camera doesn't alter that reality. What worries me more than CCTV is the invisible ways we allow ourselves to be tracked.
Last week, while New Yorkers were celebrating the Knicks' first NBA championship in 53 years, a hacking group known as ShinyHunters reportedly released data stolen from Madison Square Garden after owner Jim Dolan declined to pay a ransom demand. While the breach involved information relating to visitors, contractors and employees, it didn't receive much attention.
Breaches have become the background noise of modern life. A company loses control of a database. A collection of........
