I don't disagree that it's bad, but this article seems to give the impression that this is new. TLO (owned by TransUnion since 2014) has been selling this stuff since the 2000s.<p>Basically, assume any parking lot or other surveillance camera you come across is reporting back either the raw data itself or the processed data, like which license plate has been seen. Even the tiny mom-and-pop's, through some deal with either their (or whoever they lease property from's) surveillance or software provider.<p>And it's regularly been abused by bad actors among debt collectors, private investigators, police, and background check companies selling their access. Like to amateur rap crews from North Carolina, in this example:<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/10/12/how-an-amateur-rap-crew-stole-surveillance-tech-that-tracks-almost-every-american/?sh=72ec542f50f1" rel="nofollow">https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/10/12/how-a...</a><p>So.. yeah, call attention to the practice and the fact it's expanding, that more and more companies are gaining and selling the data. But it minimizes the scope and scale of the problem to focus on one relatively new company's actions over the course of a few years.