Security

Kiley Reid's book Such a Fun Age is a page turner about race and class.

The story is about a Black babysitter, Emira, who was accused by an upscale grocery store security guard. The security guard suspected Emira to be a kidnapper of a white toddler. The scene of tense standoff – security guard pointing finger at Emira's face, and rebuttal "The fuck are you doing? Don't touch me!" from Emira holding a two-year-old girl – was filmed by a white man holding his cell phone.

Emira didn't want to keep the video and asked for deletion of the footage. Things got complicated when it turns out that video had been leaked and went viral. Emira Googled black girl grocery store video and was appalled by thousand entries of comment on Twitter. 

The novel isn't about cybersecurity but Emira's friend's comments serve as a lens through which I learn to to be careful. Emira's friend Zara asked the key questions on safeguarding digital data.

"Who the fuck did you send this to?"

"Did someone steal your phone?"

"Look at me. Did your phone get hacked?"

"Is it on the cloud? Or on a drive or a shared folder?" 

"Are you sure he deleted it that night? Did he delete if from his Sent folder? Did you make sure?"