The Infinite Brief

Suddenly someone, a government, a crime gang, an army, will have a map of your entire past and be able to find memories even you have forgotten.

A generation back, you could make mistakes, do the stupid things teenagers do, and let it be buried by time. That is over.

We should anticipate a moment when a future version of Google can search for every image with your face in it. Not just photos on Facebook, but images in videos, from security cameras, from the background of other people’s holiday videos, photos of you in a crowd, marching in a rally.

You cannot conceptualize a database of every image and video ever taken that has your face in it; when all of those images can be correlated into a map of every place you’ve been to, every person you’ve met. This digital profile may be able to say where you were at most given moments in your past; it could break your alibis, sell your secrets, cross-check your statements and stories.