in the last year about privacy.

Like, a lot.

And almost every time we do, we

hear a version of the same thing.

"It amazes me how often I hear from people,

I have nothing to hide.

I have nothing to fear from people spying on me."

"I think I'm a law-abiding citizen,

so I'm not so worried about it.

Send what you've got, Big Brother."

In a yearlong series, we've shown you

how your privacy is being invaded

at an industrial scale.

"You are followed 24/7, 365 days a year."

"Everything you do is being watched."

I mean, even we're doing it to you right now.

Despite that, you haven't gone through the settings

on your phone, have you?

You probably don't use a VPN, and I

know you don't read the terms and conditions

before clicking Accept.

But while you're busy not thinking about it,

your private information is being raided, traded

and used against you in terrifying ways.

"I was shocked.

We should be very scared."

So ask yourself this:

How much of your private information

are you really comfortable giving away?

"Let me look on the internet.

They'll know I'm searching for it."

In this video, we're going to test your privacy comfort

level.

Seriously, where is your red line?

"They know a lot more about you

than you may even know about yourself."

Because there's a lot more at stake

than you think, and time is running out

to do anything about it.

"So you think you have nothing to hide?

You ain't seen nothing yet."

"Wow, I didn't even think about that."

"Open up Budweiser and pour yourself

the most inviting glass of beer you've ever tasted."

For a long time, advertising was an art of guesswork.

The madmen could only hope that you were thirsty.

But now, they can tell exactly how you're feeling.

To show you what I mean, I want

to tell you about a little experiment we did.

He's our guinea pig.

"Hi."

His name is Farhad Manjoo.

"I'm an opinion columnist at The New York Times

and I write about technology."

And at the start of the year, he volunteered.

"Well, I was asked to volunteer

to have all of my information tracked

and then, you know, publish all that in the newspaper."

Using a special browser, we were

able to see what websites Farhad visited.

But more importantly, what those websites

could see about him.

"So I started the day on Google and did a search.

And nine trackers were downloaded onto my computer."

Yes, trackers.

These are tiny text files or even just a pixel sometimes.

And,

"Trackers do what it sounds like they do.

They track you.

They can get my I.P. address or the device I'm using

or the screen size.

They were able to determine my location very precisely.

Next, I went to HuffPo, and I was swarmed.

The trackers kind of multiplied.

There were dozens and dozens."

Every site Farhad visited, the trackers followed him.

"Washington Post, Google, Vanity Fair."

By the way, you know all of this

is happening to you right now, don't you?

as you're watching this video?

You're just not supposed to know about it.

"And they're just — the trackers are

just kind of, you know, on my heels

as I go around the web."

O.K., so different companies know the model of your phone.

Big deal.

Well, it gets worse.

With all of your private data, the trackers send it away to

"Mostly advertising companies."

So there's this gigantic digital marketplace

where your personal information is auctioned off

to advertisers.

Your data's like one of these tuna,

except instead of humans arguing over you,

it's algorithms.

It all happens in a split second, every time

you load a web page.

"The fact that parts of me are being bought and sold

in this marketplace is very creepy."

The companies say this data is all

scattered into many little pieces

and so it stays anonymous.

But in buying and selling to each other,

the companies can assemble those pieces

and begin to build complete profiles of you.

"They can have kind of almost direct access

to your subconscious."

And that's where this gets kind of dark.

Where companies once had to hope you were in the mood

to buy, now they can use your data to predict your mood

and take advantage of it.

Would you be O.K. if a company could

tell you were depressed because of the food

you just ordered?

Or if your health insurance provider

could raise your premiums because it knew you skipped

too many days at the gym?

What about if your ride-share app

was monitoring your phone's battery?

There's nothing stopping them from using that information

to jack up prices when you're low on juice

and most desperate for a ride.

The companies have all of this information about you,

and legally.

I mean, you agreed to it in those terms and conditions

you didn't read.

It's nothing short of mind control.

"I often wonder when I'm using a site like Facebook,

whether the thoughts I'm having

are independent thoughts.

Like, was it my idea to go to this place for a vacation,

or was it Facebook's idea?"

If being tracked by a beer company

doesn't cross the line for you,

let's see how you feel when we take it up a level.

"Police departments use modern science

to protect you, such as teletype, photography."

The technology the police are using these days,

well, it's gotten a bit more sophisticated than this.

This next story starts in Bryant Park, Midtown New

York, on a Tuesday lunchtime.

"That day was a typical late winter day."

Well, not that typical.

Our New York Times Opinion reporters

were busy collecting footage from the public webcams

in the park.

We ran it through facial recognition software,

and that software, it scans nearly 3,000

faces in the footage and matched them

against a collection of publicly available images.

And it didn't take long to find a match.

"That is me."

For this guy.

"I'm Dr. Richard Madonna.

I'm a professor at the SUNY College of Optometry.

I had an email and a voice mail from The New York Times.

What it said was, were you in Bryant Park last Tuesday

at 1 o'clock?

So I went to my calendar, and sure enough, it

said, 1 o'clock, Bryant Park Grill."

In case you're wondering, all of this is legal,

and the software cost us less than $100 on Amazon.

"That was a little spooky."

Now anyone can collect the biometric information

of members of the public and dig into their lives.

"There was a picture of the side

of my head taken from above.

Clearly, it was enough to identify with my website

picture, which was actually taken probably

six or seven years ago."

Now, maybe this is news to you,

but law enforcement agencies figured this out

20 years ago.

Today, they've got access to photographs

of tens of millions of Americans.

Images they run against descriptions of suspects

thousands of times a year.

Researchers have told us there's

a 50-50 chance your face is in that database.

So what happens when someone who looks a bit like you

commits a crime?

Does it bother you that the photo from your driver's

license puts you in an infinite police lineup?

Do public spaces feel the same

when you know you can't escape surveillance?

Now, obviously, this technology comes

with potential benefits, like catching criminals.

But never before have law enforcement agencies

had powers like this.

And right now, there's no legislation

that puts a limit on it.

So have we reached your comfort level yet?

Maybe you are O.K. with companies manipulating

your emotions and your face being in a police database.

Fine.

But let's try taking this up just one more level.

This guy knew what it was like to live

under constant surveillance.

For more than a decade, F.B.I. agents

dug into his private life,

wiretapped his home and his hotel rooms.

Except, of course, Martin Luther King Jr.

was no criminal.

He was just advocating for civil rights.

The government didn't like that,

so they went looking for information to discredit him.

"Governments have always been looking at people.

That's not something that's new."

This is Kara Swisher, by the way.

"I'm a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times

and I'm a longtime technology journalist.

Anytime the government can overreach

in terms of surveilling citizenry,

they have done in the history of the world."

And the last time?

It wasn't that long ago.

"New details on that whistle-blower who

leaked top-secret documents —"

"Uncovering a massive government surveillance

program of phone records and internet use —"

"When you call Grandma in Nebraska, the N.S.A. knows."

"You know, a lot of people were

surprised that the government was surveilling its citizens

so extensively.

I wasn't.

What I think was surprising about what this stuff that

Edward Snowden revealed was how extensive

the government's surveillance

was."

Extensive?

The government had spent a whole decade

reading the metadata on your emails, your texts

and your phone calls.

"There's an expression: Why rob a bank?

Well, that's where the money is.

There's never been a time in history

when more information about you

was available because of information you willingly

give up."

And this hasn't stopped, by the way.

The Patriot Act, which contains all these powers,

was quietly renewed again at the end of 2019.

"Can you imagine today, the ability

to track Martin Luther King just if he had a

cellphone, just if he appeared at a hotel,

just if he moved through the world?"

Just imagine today's surveillance technology

in the hands of J. Edgar Hoover's F.B.I.

They could have identified protesters, published

their names and intimidated them, all to keep them

from marching in the streets.

And as crazy as it seems, America might still

look a lot more like this.

This is why your privacy matters.

Surveillance is a means of control and suppression.

"Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies

of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes

of California."

So how do you feel now?