The Marriott Breach Reminds Us How Valuable Hotel Data Is To Spies
Earlier this year I wrote about the shadowy world of data brokers that buy and sell our most intimate information, from the products we buy to the medical conditions we suffer from to the locations we frequent, profiting from us without our knowledge or consent. From our pharmacies to our cellphone companies, we are surveilled in the offline world just as much as in the online. The recent massive Marriott breach offers a stark reminder of just how much intimate data about us is stored in the archives of private companies around the world and how even our purely offline activities can surveil us into the digital realm.
For all the conversation about online privacy and the web's surveillance state, the reality is that we cannot escape the digital world even when we are offline. When you buy groceries, pay your rent, subscribe to a magazine, fill a prescription, rent a car, check into a hotel or even just walk down the street, every action you take is being recorded and logged into myriad digital profiles of you kept by private companies. Some of those companies in turn resell that information to others, turning an additional profit from you even when you are already paying them a subscription fee. In today's world, you can't even buy your privacy with a subscription.
