Where Even the Children Are Being Tracked

On Nov. 19, 2016, kids in tow, Margie Homer drove from her home. She pulled into the lot of the Pasadena Waldorf School in Altadena, Calif., at 10:26 a.m. It was a gorgeous, clear morning, and she and hundreds of others walked among the bales of hay and suits of armor decorating the grounds for the annual holiday Elves’ Faire. At 12:49 p.m. she pulled out of the lot, heading back down East Mariposa Street the way she came.

All afternoon the city hummed in every direction. Across town, K. was en route to a lunch at Din Tai Fung, a Taiwanese restaurant in Arcadia where he’d arrive at 1:34 p.m. for a 54-minute lunch. M. stopped at Pasadena City College briefly, then made a trip to Home Depot. Others, like C. and J., went to church. There were evening errands: After a day with family, A. popped into a CVS at 6:57 p.m. C. took an evening trip to Costco. T. made a stop at AutoZone in Rosemead. Hundreds more shopped, ate, walked in the park, visited doctors’ offices and coffee shops, and a few checked into hotels at odd hours.

The only thing out of the ordinary for the good people of Pasadena, Calif., about this particular Saturday is that three years later and 3,000 miles away in a newsroom, Times Opinion watched their every move unfold all over again. Minute by minute and inch by inch.

We pieced together some stories from Pasadena over a period of several months. Our eye in the sky wasn’t a network of traffic cams or satellites but data exhaust spewing from smartphone apps buried in the pockets and purses of unsuspecting Americans.