Look around you.

There is probably a device within arm’s reach.

A phone.

A smartwatch.

Wireless earbuds.

A television.

A laptop.

A camera.

A router quietly blinking somewhere nearby.

And now something new has entered the picture:

Artificial intelligence.

Technology no longer simply records information.

Increasingly, it can organize it, analyze it, compare it, classify it and find patterns inside it.

That changes the question.

It is no longer simply:

“Is somebody watching?”

The question becomes:

“What happens when the machine watching you can understand what it sees?”

Your phone follows you everywhere.

Bedroom.

Bathroom.

Car.

Work.

Restaurant.

Airport.

Holiday.

Family gatherings.

Private conversations.

It is one of the few objects people routinely carry into almost every part of their lives.

And unlike an ordinary camera, a modern phone can contain an enormous amount of information about its owner.

Contacts.

Photographs.

Messages.

Applications.

Location information.

Searches.

Purchases.

Documents.

Accounts.

Authentication credentials.

Years of digital history.

The device becomes something more than a telephone.

It becomes an external memory.

And sometimes, an external portrait of its owner.

The frightening part is that technology does not necessarily need to know everything about you directly.

It can learn from patterns.

Where you go.

When you go.

Who you communicate with.

What you search for.

What you watch.

What you buy.

What you repeatedly return to.

One isolated piece of information may mean almost nothing.

Thousands of pieces can become a profile.

And that is where our story begins.