Her day is a matter of record

Kitty Bernard's digital footprints:

6:15 a.m.

Bernard, who is married and has a grandson, pads into the lobby of her Reston, Va., condo complex on the way to the building's gym, and almost no one else is about. But a security camera records her. If the government or a divorce lawyer wants the tapes, it can subpoena them.

7:17 a.m.

Bernard returns to her condo after her workout and fires up her laptop to check e-mail.

She opens a few, deletes 38 more — junk mail from Weight Watchers, a personal trainer, a firm that sells art posters. The U.S. government claims that even before she's opened them, it should have the right to read them if it needs to. The technology exists to do that.

8:30 a.m.

She takes a cellphone call from her daughter.

After a brief chat, she hangs up. But her cellphone is still sending its ID signals to the nearest cellular towers, giving her phone company her approximate location. Approximate, but precise enough that the FBI has used such information to locate suspects, and marketers are contemplating using it for targeted cellphone advertising pitches by text message.

8:35 a.m.

Bernard pulls into an Exxon Mobil gas station. She holds a small wand called a Speedpass to a sensor at the gas pump.

The gadget uses radio frequency identification (RFID) waves to charge her Exxon Mobil account directly. No cash. No card swipe.

RFID chips are being placed in credit cards, passports and items on store shelves. Some people have even had chips injected into their bodies so emergency-room doctors can have instant access to their medical records. The chips can track, conduct transactions and in some cases be hacked. They transmit information to private databases. By default, Exxon Mobil has the right to share her name and other information it collects on her with "consumer reporting agencies, banks, insurance companies, retailers, publishers and direct marketers" unless Bernard "opts out." But she has never done so.

8:40 a.m.

Bernard enters her Coldwell Banker office building and is recorded by a hidden security camera.

10:25 a.m.

She logs on to Top Producer, Web-based software for real-estate agents that allows Bernard to retrieve notes on her clients wherever she has access to the Internet. She can look up clients' birthdays and home-buying anniversaries, lending a personal touch to her service.

The trend toward Web-based computing means that reams of data Bernard and others used to keep in notebooks are now stored on servers owned by private companies, where the data are potentially vulnerable to hackers and potentially accessible to government authorities.

11:05 a.m.

She dials Domino's for pizza.

Domino's tracks her name, phone number, address, and size and type of pizza ordered. Unless a store decides otherwise, the data are held forever. That way, Domino's can provide more personalized service. Domino's, which hopes to have a national database of customers soon, says it does not share or sell customer information. But companies that specialize in providing unlisted and cellphone numbers, among other records, often purchase phone numbers from pizza-delivery services, according to Merlin Information Services, a data broker.

12:30 p.m.

Bernard gets back in her car, a 2003 Mercedes-Benz with navigation and roadside emergency service. She turns the key in the ignition, activating a Global Positioning System (GPS) device that uses satellites to pinpoint her location and is constantly sending out signals.

GPS technology allows her to map out a route and find streets and landmarks, restaurants and hotels. She can use a CD, which displays on a dashboard screen, or push a button and connect to a roadside-assistance call center run by the Texas telematics firm ATX, which can guide her if she's lost or call her a tow truck.

GPS can generate a record of her travels, though ATX says it does not keep such location records now. The company stores emergency call records — location, time, nature of call — for billing and other purposes.

12:35 p.m.

Bernard pulls up to a tollbooth. A Smart Tag on her front license plate communicates with a sensor and pays her toll. A light flashes green.

The Virginia Department of Transportation records the date and time she passed, the toll location, the amount paid and her customer account information. The FBI has used this type of information to help solve murder cases, and private attorneys have used it in divorce cases.

As she passes, two cameras record her — one in front of her car and one in back.

2:10 p.m.

Bernard enters Costco. She uses her Costco membership card, linked to an American Express card, to buy bottled drinks and bagged candy.

She likes the credit voucher she will get at year's end, worth 1 percent of her total purchases, thanks to her Costco membership.

Costco likes its database of 50 million shoppers' purchase histories, e-mail addresses and phone numbers, which it can use to notify consumers of a product recall or do marketing research. Bernard's credit-card companies know her income and her shopping habits. They can share her information with affiliates. Credit bureaus maintain gigantic databases on consumers such as Bernard fed by tens of thousands of banks, auto lenders, credit-card issuers, state welfare agencies, utility companies and court records.

3:25 p.m.

Bernard visits BestBuy.com to look for a CD case.

Best Buy receives good ratings from customers on privacy, according to the Ponemon Institute, a privacy research group. But online retailers in general are a prime target for people who call the retailer pretending to be a customer to obtain passwords and other personal information that they then use to access online bank accounts. This practice, known as pretexting, is also done by fly-by-night data brokers who collect and sell phone numbers and other personal data.

4:15 p.m.

She enters a planned community in Loudoun County, Va., to show a client a house. Two cameras record her car entering. Residents can tune their TVs to the security channel and see who's at the gate. Bernard inserts an electronic key — which looks like a pager — into a black rectangular lockbox, and a real key drops out.

The e-key uses an infrared beam to transmit the date and time, her name and phone number, and her company name to the lockbox. The lockbox, itself an electronic device, beams to the e-key a number linked to the house address.

The information is kept by GE Security, which puts it on a Web site for real-estate professionals who want to check the last three months of activity.

5 p.m.

Bernard, back in her car, presses a button for a concierge service. She wants to make a dinner reservation.

"I'm speaking with Mrs. Bernard?" says Denise, her concierge. "Fan-tas-tic." The service, run by VIP Desk of Alexandria, can book hotel stays, set up scuba lessons and even find a pet sitter. Today, Denise reserves a table for Bernard and her husband, John Emert, at a Legal Sea Foods restaurant.

VIP Desk serves millions of customers and keeps large amounts of data that can be customized for its corporate clients, which include credit-card companies and travel companies.

5:20 p.m.

Back in her office, Bernard does a Google search on a coffee maker because she can't remember the model's exact name.

Google collects billions of search queries a month typed in by users such as Bernard, creating one of the largest databases of online behavioral data in the world. Google uses this data on an aggregate level for research purposes, such as refining its search engine, or to see how many people are clicking on ads so that Google can bill the advertisers. Google targets ads to users based on the search terms they use and can target ads by geography.

6:45 p.m.

Bernard and her husband enter the mall. They are heading to Legal Sea Foods. Security cameras record their passage.

9:00 p.m.

Bernard and Emert return from dinner and shopping, using an RFID key fob to enter the building. A camera again records them.