Enjoying Technology's Conveniences But Not Escaping Its Watchful Eyes

She enters Belmont Country Club, a planned community in Loudoun County, to show a client a house. Two cameras record her car entering. Residents can tune their TV sets 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. The firm also stores the data for years just in case an agent needs it to, for instance, help settle a civil dispute.

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 Legal Sea Foods in Tysons II Galleria mall.

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.

"Tazzimo," she types. "Tazzamo," then "Tazmo." Finally, she types in "coffee makers" and gets a link to Amazon.com. She clicks on the link. "There it is! Braun Tassimo," she says.

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.

9:05 p.m.

She logs on to her laptop again, seeing only a few e-mails. After watching a little television with her husband, she'll head to bed about11.

* * *

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 GPS 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.

"Amazing," she said in a follow-up interview. "It's astounding to think that my whereabouts and activities can be tracked by any number of companies and individuals."

But, she said, she's not inclined to change her ways. 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."