Artist Raided Over Apple Store Spy Snaps

The US Secret Service has confiscated computers from a 25-year-old “media artist” in New York City after he used software installed on Apple Store computers to covertly snap photos of shoppers, and post the results online.

Kyle McDonald said he had permission from security guards at various Apple Stores around New York City for the “photographic intervention”, which he called “People Staring At Computers”. However, that apparently wasn’t enough for Apple, which sent Secret Service agents to his home, where they confiscated two computers, an iPod and two flash drives.

Stiff charges

The warrant stated that his activities had violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and McDonald could face up to 20 years in prison if Apple decides to press charges.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment as of press time.

McDonald installed an application on Apple Store machines around New York, which then took a picture every minute and uploaded it if a face was found in the image. The application then exhibited the face on every available computer in the store, McDonald said. The project page can be found here.

McDonald said he had not had permission from Apple or from the people whose pictures were taken.

“As I understand, photography in open spaces is legal unless explicitly prohibited,” McDonald wrote in a Twitter post on Thursday. “The only permission came from the guard.”

EFF advice

McDonald said he had contacted the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) for advice and had been told to lie low for the moment.

In a video describing the project McDonald said he wanted to see what would happen if people became more aware of how they were staring at computers.

“Maybe if we could see what our computer sees we would stare differently?” he said in the video.

Most shoppers looked confused and pressed the “escape” button to try to remove their image from the screen, McDonald said.

In the course of the project McDonald took about 1,000 photos over three days at Apple Stores around New York.

Matthew Broersma

Matt Broersma is a long standing tech freelance, who has worked for Ziff-Davis, ZDnet and other leading publications

Recent Posts

Ericsson To Cut 1,200 Jobs in Sweden Amid ‘Challenging’ Market

Swedish telecoms giant Ericsson blamed “challenging mobile networks market” and “further volume contraction” for job…

3 hours ago

FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced To 25 Years In Prison For $8bn Fraud

Dramatic downfall. Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison for masterminding $8bn fraud that…

4 hours ago

Elon Musk Orders FSD Demo For Every Tesla US Sale

Fallout avoidance? Tesla buyers in the US must be shown how to use the FSD…

4 hours ago

Amazon Pumps Another $2.75 Billion Into Anthropic

Amazon completes its $4bn investment into AI firm Anthropic, after providing an additional $2.75bn in…

6 hours ago

The Sustainability of AI

While AI promises unparalleled efficiency, productivity, and innovation, questions regarding its environmental impact loom large.…

9 hours ago

Trump’s Truth Social Makes Successful Market Debut

Shares in Donald Trump’s social media company rose about 16 percent after first day of…

9 hours ago