Particularly academics use the language the author used. It narrows who is
severely affected by a lack of privacy to small groups. It's akin to the folks who say, "Privacy? I have nothing to hide!"
The reality is that as the fragile pillars of privacy that exist in most governments are eroded the impact radius grows exponentially. I'd really like them to be stressing that losing privacy is life or death for just about everyone.
I can't tell you what the author meant other than what they said, but I can tell you that there's an abundance of folks who believe privacy is a niche issue for small groups which is far from the truth.