By now we’ve all seen the video: a couple locked in an intimate embrace at a Coldplay concert. Within milliseconds, the woman turns her face and the man ducks. The crowd gasps. Chris Martin quips: “Either they’re having an affair or they’re very shy.”

Within 24 hours, the internet had done what it does best: turned sleuth. The names of the pair were quickly revealed. LinkedIns found. Both were senior executives at a New York data firm, he, the CEO; she, the head of HR. Both married. With children.

The story unfolded like a soap opera. The CEO’s wife’s Facebook was discovered. Internet watchdogs noticed she’d removed her last name. The internet was furious and equally entertained.

Thousands of memes circulated. Parodies flooded TikTok. Calls to fire them rivalled calls for humanitarian justice and in the most corporate plot twist of all, it spilled over to LinkedIn. Beneath the HR manager’s last post, commenters asked if cheating was in the job description.

This was a media storm. But more than that, it was a public trial.

We live in a digital panopticon. Surveillance isn’t top-down any more, it’s lateral. It’s ambient and crowdsourced. It........

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