Ways we are already being monitored

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-Facebook, founded in 2004, has prompted hundreds of millions of people to put details of their lives on public display. The company has come under fire for making people’s personal photos available for use in advertisements, but media reports suggest the government has scoured Facebook’s servers for audio, video, contacts, e-mails and other documents.

—”Smartphones” with built-in GPS capabilities could allow users to be electronically tracked. As of this year, more than half of all American adults use smartphones, according to the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

—Remote frequency identification, or RFID, chips. The Department of Agriculture used it to keep track of cattle being medicated, but RFID technology is now in everything from commuter passes to key cards. Tags can be linked on the Internet — and read without the holder’s knowledge or permission.

—Loyalty or “rewards” cards. Memberships in such programs — which offer savings, while tracking spending habits — have grown from 973 million in 2000 to nearly 2.7 billion last year in the U.S., according to the COLLOQUY Loyalty Census.

—Automated teller machines, or ATMs. Most often equipped with cameras, there are an estimated 414,000 ATMs in the U.S., a 28 percent increase since September 2001, according to Sam M. Ditzion, CEO of Tremont Capital Group, Inc.

Ways we are already being monitored