Nobody expects to be invisible on streets, at borders, or in shopping centers. But who has access to all that surveillance data, and how long it is stored? There is  no single U.S. privacy law  at the federal level, and states cope with a regulatory patchwork; only five states–California, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah and Virginia– have privacy laws.

It is possible to  limit location tracking  on your phone, but not to avoid it completely. Data brokers are supposed to mask your  personally identifiable data  before selling it. But this “ anonymization ” is meaningless since individuals are easily identified by cross-referencing additional data sets. This makes it easy for  bounty hunters and stalkers  to abuse the system.

The biggest risk to most people arises when there is a  data breach , which is happening more often – whether it is a  leaky app  or careless  hotel chain , a  DMV data sale  or a compromised  credit bureau , or indeed a  data brokering  middleman whose  cloud storage  is hacked.

This illicit flow of data not only puts  fuzzy notions  of privacy in peril, but may put your addresses and passport numbers, biometric data and social media profiles, credit card numbers and dating profiles, health and insurance information, and more  on sale.

Peter Krapp is a professor of film and media studies at the University of California, Irvine.

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