Today’s Washington Post profiles the way in which our daily lives are monitored by a host of seemingly innocuous devices:
The tracking of Kitty Bernard begins shortly after she wakes up. All through the 56-year-old real estate agent’s day, from walking in her building’s lobby to e-mailing friends and shopping and working, the watchful eye of technology records her movements and preferences.
Welcome to the 21st century.
Like many Americans, Bernard uses modern gadgets to make life easier, and along the way creates a data trail that others can access and preserve, sometimes permanently. Every Internet search resides on a computer somewhere. Comings and goings are monitored by security cameras. Phone calls are logged by telecommunications companies.
This explosion in data collection has been embraced by many Americans as a trade-off for convenience and discounts. But it also has raised questions about personal privacy at a time when the government is increasingly tapping into these reservoirs of telling details to fight crime and terrorism.
The problem, I think, lies not in the fact that this information is gathered but how it is used and who is using it. Personally, I am more concerned by data collection by the government than I am by my local grocery store.
[...] Technology is watching you. (HT: Below the Beltway) [...]