Obviously, a government has more power and more means than an individual.
But when it comes to databases, individuals have access to ridiculously large databases too. With Facebook and Google you can peek into the private life of most people, even the police does it because there is more data there than in their own files. And I am just talking about ordinary access. Not what Facebook and Google can do as a company.
Add a bit of social engineering and crowdsourcing and no one is safe if enough people want to find them. There have been some pretty impressive "doxing" in the past.
And staying off social media is pretty hard if you want to live a normal life. You may not have a Facebook account but your friends do, you may find your picture on your company website, maybe even in a local newspaper. And officials are no different, if they want to live normally, they are going to be exposed.
But when it comes to databases, individuals have access to ridiculously large databases too. With Facebook and Google you can peek into the private life of most people, even the police does it because there is more data there than in their own files. And I am just talking about ordinary access. Not what Facebook and Google can do as a company.
Add a bit of social engineering and crowdsourcing and no one is safe if enough people want to find them. There have been some pretty impressive "doxing" in the past.
And staying off social media is pretty hard if you want to live a normal life. You may not have a Facebook account but your friends do, you may find your picture on your company website, maybe even in a local newspaper. And officials are no different, if they want to live normally, they are going to be exposed.