You’re not just being paranoid. Your every step on the internet, every download, and every time you open an app are logged and stored somewhere. Almost always, the raw data is examined by software to find persistent bugs and patterns of use for programmers and designers to make better software or figure out what apps and features are popular and which ones are not. But all those oceans of data being collected along with your activity on social media and background noise from your voice-activated AI assistants are ripe for abuse and it’s long past time we had a very serious discussion on what we’re collecting, why, and how we use it.