Kyle McDonald

The Apple Store art stunt that got the Secret Service to raid a home

Sam recounts artist Kyle McDonald, who in 2011 installed software on 50 Apple Store computers that secretly photographed shoppers' faces, published it as art, and got his home raided by the Secret Service after Apple reported him.

“And so he went to an Apple store in Brooklyn and they had 50 computers and he installed an app on all 50 computers that automatically took a picture every like 30 or 60 seconds. And anytime it detected a face, it would send him the pictures and he published it as like an art exposit— uh, an art thing of like look at what people look like when they're looking at computers at a laptop in Apple. And after publishing that, the Secret Service raided his home, uh, and Apple, Apple contacted the Secret Service.”