People subject to identity theft due to poor control of their data do indeed suffer real world consequences. I wouldn't necessarily want to argue it's a case of life or death - but there's undoubtedly actual harm in some cases ranging from social issues if their data is sensitive, right down to financial loss.
And if you wanted to examine whether it could be a matter of life or death, it wouldn't be that big of a stretch. Consider what might be the result of someone trying to escape from an abusive relationship having their personal data exposed. Or a whistleblower / political dissident. For example, imagine a Chinese dissident with a free-Tibet facebook record whose data gets back to the Chinese government.
I'd focus on China particularly because they're developing a system for working out how much people align with the state and it appears it may be partly based on the information they can find out about people's internet postings:
And if you wanted to examine whether it could be a matter of life or death, it wouldn't be that big of a stretch. Consider what might be the result of someone trying to escape from an abusive relationship having their personal data exposed. Or a whistleblower / political dissident. For example, imagine a Chinese dissident with a free-Tibet facebook record whose data gets back to the Chinese government.
I'd focus on China particularly because they're developing a system for working out how much people align with the state and it appears it may be partly based on the information they can find out about people's internet postings:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System