My sister and I are taking a break from our D&D 5e game to do some Vampire: The Masquerade. I've never played before, but she's played a lot, so I'm not as familiar with all of the rules. Mind's Eye Theatre seems to be a newer version of the V:TM system, so I'm not sure how familiar she is with this specific iteration of V:TM.

Anyway, we're having trouble agreeing on what exactly the Arcane merit does. This merit only costs 1 XP, so I wouldn't expect it to be too strong. Here's the text for the merit:
You are mystically shrouded from notice. People you interact with briefly will not remember your presence unless you have been specifically pointed out. Paper trails related to you disappear, and computer records randomly become corrupted, misplaced, or accidentally erased. This effect gives no benefit to Stealth and doesn't handicap people who know you personally, such as other characters, but individuals who you meet in passing have difficulty recalling details about who you are. This is both a benefit, and potentially a mild annoyance.
She's claiming that all pictures, films, audio recordings, etc. get corrupted/deleted. This means that security cameras are basically useless against me (especially combined with Obfuscation, which doesn't affect such recordings directly, but does affect people watching the recordings live or near-live). On the flip side, it means I can't have photo ID, and probably affects my ability to have a bank account, social security number, etc.

However, my interpretation is that the way Arcane affects tech depends on the person using the tech. If someone I don't know takes a picture that happens to include me, it will get corrupted. If someone who knows me takes a picture of me, specifically, then it would remain intact and wouldn't be affected by Arcane. I'm not quite sure how this would interact with something like security cameras, though. Would it depend on if the security guard knows me? Or if the person who owns the building knows me?

My feeling was that Arcane is meant to cover any loose ends that might be lying about, but it itself isn't supposed to be noticeable. If I talk to someone in passing, they simply forget about it. If I get caught on a security camera, that portion of the footage glitches out and can be handwaved as a simple tech fluke. If someone repeatedly tries to take pictures of me and they all get corrupted, they'll definitely notice that something is up.

What my sister is describing is a lot more than a "potential mild annoyance", it's basically "you don't exist as far as technology is concerned". I thought that last sentence referred to, for example, situations where you might need an alibi, but anyone who could have vouched for you has conveniently forgotten all about you. Basically, as an "always on" power, there may be instances where you'd want to turn it off (perhaps, or especially, retroactively), and you can't.