The grass-roots surveillance network in the United States is poised for yet another major expansion this Christmas season. Think of each new Ring video doorbell, discount DNA test, WiFi-equipped clothes dryer, smart speaker and mobile phone as a new node on the world’s most advanced and pervasive effort at human monitoring. All that data is collected by someone, somewhere.

It was hard not to cast a slightly jaded eye at the packages under my own tree after working for months on the Times Opinion Privacy Project’s investigation into the location tracking industry. That investigation, based on a dataset provided by sources alarmed by the unchecked power of the tracking industry, offered a look at more than 50 billion location pings from the phones of more than 12 million Americans across several major cities. We were able to easily identify Americans who work for the Secret Service and the local high school, their lives and movements an open book simply because they downloaded an app on their smartphone and enabled — wittingly or unwittingly — location services.

It is easy to read through the series and conclude that all is lost, that privacy is dead or at least archaic and that there’s simply no reforming the data-dependent culture that Americans have unintentionally embraced. After all, anyone who uses devices like smartphones, smart speakers and smart televisions has only the illusion of control when it comes to protecting personal privacy, because the government hasn’t seen fit to ban even the most intrusive data collection practices.

Some day, my child will look back aghast and ask: Wait, Dad, that was all legal?

So, what to make of all the new data-gobbling devices given by the millions? I’d say cast them into the sea, but there’s far too much plastic there as it is.