Pssst ... you're being watched

WASHINGTON — The tracking of Kitty Bernard begins shortly after she wakes up in her Reston, Va., condo. 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 new Congress has begun to examine the uses and abuses of data gathering for security and commerce. A look at Bernard's activity one recent day helps to illustrate what they're likely to find: that ordinary Americans leave a trail of digital data that is being gathered, stored and analyzed and that these people seldom realize it.

No one is forcing Bernard to embrace this technology. She loves the time she gains by paying road tolls electronically, the sense of security she feels by having a Global Positioning System in her car. She sometimes buys real-estate client lists so she can target categories of buyers — seniors or first-time home buyers — "as long as it's not intrusive," she said.

Who's to say what's intrusive at a time when teenagers are baring their souls on Web sites? When people are taking video of routine and shocking events alike and putting them on the Web? When patients' health records are being scanned into giant databases? Much of these data — voice, video, text — are not being analyzed, at least not on a systematic basis. But the government is seeking ways to effectively do so, for law enforcement and security.

These caches of data will only continue to grow, with storage cheap and tens of millions of people like Bernard eager to get in on the digital revolution, sending messages and conducting transactions with an ease futurists once only dreamed of.

In just one day, Bernard paid eight tolls electronically. She used her credit card four times and sent 20 e-mails. She passed before security cameras at least 50 times.

But Bernard said she already takes measures to guard her privacy. She saves intimate details for phone calls. She's on a do-not-call telemarketing list. She trusts her company to keep her office system hacker-free. For the most part, she trusts that the government will not be interested in her personal life — hoping for security through obscurity.

"I have no tickets. I obey the law," she said. "I would trust them to look at me and see I'm a businessperson. I'm a family person."