You're Being Watched

As you drive today Google is likely tracking your progress. This is how they provide driving estimates and traffic reports. Apple is likely tracking you as well so they can help predict driving times and driving patterns for you. You can check your phone and trace everywhere you've actually taken your iPhone. It's collecting and storing your location constantly.

Apple is also collecting a lot of data (albeit in a relatively safe any anonymous way) from your mobile device to aggregate some big data. (link to read more here) All other mobile device companies are doing something similar and likely worse.

My phone holds my workouts, heart rates, floors climbed and etc.

Your email is being closely monitored for multiple reasons, for sure for advertising and profiling reasons.

Every search you do online is being tracked and traced.

Any store you walk into today will be video recording you.

One of the hottest selling items last holiday season was Amazon's Alexa. A speaker that constantly listens in your home as a "personal assistant".

Amazon just opened a store without cashiers. Instead sensors and cameras will track your every selection and charge your account on the way out. The amount of data they will be able to mine once this becomes mainstream will be almost unfathomable. Immediately they will be able to mine an incredible amount of demographic data about customers. (link to read more here)

I noticed Instagram now let's you see when a user is active and when they last used the app.

You can know when someone has read your text. You can know when someone has screenshot your messages. You can follow your friends and check their whereabouts any time you want. You can set alerts to be notified when they leave their location. You can google almost anyone and find out a lot about them. And on and on. I'm sure I could triple this post length with just a little bit more research and detail...

The point is, the world has changed and almost every move you make is being watched and likely recorded.

What does this really mean? I'm honestly not too sure yet. One thing we can for sure say is that more than ever our actions matter. As time goes along I am sure there will be many many lessons to learn from this. But for today, this stands as a reminder that what you do matters and will carry repercussions likely beyond what you're even aware of. Secondly, people are watching you, be an example. This is far more important than being watched by technology. Your children will learn from what you do moreso than what you say. Be an example. Actions matter.