 We frequently report on the dangers of general surveillance in the hands of government actors willing to disregard quaint notions of privacy and civil liberties. Now comes a sobering reminder that bad actors can use the global surveillance economy to track down people in order to kill them. According to The Guardian, that’s exactly what the Sinaloa drug cartel did in 2018, as detailed in a new Justice Department report. “El Chapo” Guzmán was extradited to the United States in 2017. As payback, a hacker working for El Chapo’s drug cartel subsequently accessed the phone of an FBI assistant legal attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. The cartel, reports Reuters, used the phone number to obtain records of calls in and out as well as geolocation data. Next, the cartel got into Mexico City’s extensive camera system to track the FBI official to identify everyone who met with him. Some were intimidated and threatened. Others were murdered. Out of the 10 largest metropolises in the world, Mexico City ranks seventh in CCTV cameras per 1,000 people, or roughly six cameras per person. Yet there, as elsewhere, it has had little impact on the crime index. In the meantime, savvy criminals working for shadowy organizations can use it for criminal surveillance. The Justice Department report says that the FBI has a strategic plan in the works to help mitigate such vulnerabilities. Such efforts are well-intentioned, to be sure, but likely to be one-sided. Playing defense against hackers with access to every tool they need is not a long-term solution. Let’s start by putting stronger guardrails on camera networks in every country that uses them. The warning is that when governments create systematic surveillance networks, they could easily enable the crimes they seek to prevent. Comments are closed.
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