Help us figure out the new boundaries of privacy. In the sections that follow, we'll present you with a handful of scenarios at the intersection of privacy and technology.

We’d like you to choose where you would draw the line when you reach the limits of what you're comfortable with.

I’m comfortable if a social media website …

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and might know when I walk into into a physical store by using the location I share with the phone app

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and serves me targeted ads on a smart TV app that has a relationship with the website

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and lets third parties download detailed information on my friends, like their relationship status and interests, without their consent

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and lets third parties download basic information on my friends without their consent

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and receives information on what I buy in physical stores

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and receives details about my activity from other websites on the internet, like things I buy and sites I visit

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and buys information about me from third parties, like my purchase history, to augment their profile about me

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and lets companies upload customer lists, matching my phone or email with the one I've added to my profile, so they can send me targeted advertising

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and uses things my friends post about to send me targeted advertisements

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

collects detailed personal information about me, like my gender and interests

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

Click Tap here to draw the line where shown

Click Tap here to draw the line where shown

I’m comfortable if a smart doorbell system…

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and gives law enforcement access to its network of real-time video streams

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and gives law enforcement access to recent archives of smart doorbell videos to help investigate a crime

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and sends automatic alerts to neighbors if it thinks convicted criminals are seen

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and analyzes faces against criminal databases to alert me if potential criminals are spotted

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and gives law enforcement video clips from my device if they're served a valid warrant

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and uses video from my camera to train its A.I., so it can identify faces faster and more accurately on any device

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and learns familiar faces so it can identify known and unknown people

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and lets me upload videos from my doorbell camera to its social network so I can flag suspicious people in my neighborhood

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and sends me an alert when someone enters the camera's view, along with an image of the person

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

sends video and images to my phone so I can see who's at my door

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

Click Tap here to draw the line where shown

Click Tap here to draw the line where shown

I’m comfortable if a DNA/ancestry company...

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and lets law enforcement agencies register as users, which lets them look for criminals by matching DNA profiles (without a warrant)

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and lets customers identify relatives by matching their DNA profile to other customers in the database

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and sells my anonymous DNA profile to pharmaceutical companies or researchers as part of paid research projects

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and uses my DNA profile to conduct research on behalf of pharmaceutical companies, which could eventually be commercialized

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and sells an analysis of my de-identified/aggregated DNA profile to pharmaceutical companies and researchers

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and invites me to participate in pharmaceutical research if my DNA profile matches research needs

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and uses data from surveys I complete on the site to build a richer profile about me

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and uses my DNA sample to determine specific health risks like cancer

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

uses my DNA sample to offer clues about my genealogy

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

Click Tap here to draw the line where shown

Click Tap here to draw the line where shown

I’m comfortable if a CCTV camera...

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and watches a subsidized housing project to identify people, track movements, and record activities of the residents

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and lets police departments scan crowds in real time, looking for known criminals

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and monitors major roads or bridges 24/7, matching drivers' faces against a terrorist watch list in real time

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and interprets the features on my face to guess other attributes about me (but not who I am), like income or sexual orientation

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and allows police departments to match my faces against a driver's license database to help in an investigation

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and allows police departments to match my face against a mugshot database to help in an investigation

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and tracks where I look in a store (but not who I am) to see which products catch my attention

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and uses facial analysis to determine my age and gender (but not who I am) when buying something in a store

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and checks my face against a database of known shoplifters, allowing store security to spot potential thieves

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

... and checks my face against a database of tenants in my apartment building, unlocking the door once I'm recognized

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

You drew the line here. made the same choice.

uses facial recognition to match my face against a list of employees in my workplace, helping security spot unknown people

You drew the line here.% of readers agree with you.

Here’s the share of readers who feel comfortable with each step

Click Tap here to draw the line where shown

Click Tap here to draw the line where shown

As you can probably see, online privacy is not an absolute must for many readers: There are some acceptable trade-offs depending on the information collected, who gets to see it, how it’s shared, and maybe most important, how it’s used.

Share of readers comfortable with each scenario Has already happened* Hasn't happened yet Your response internet Detailed information Activities from friends Uploads customer lists Buys information Tracks internet activity What you buy offline Basic data on friends Personal data on friends TV ads Physically in a store Not comfortable with any dna Determines genealogy Determines health risks Combines with survey data Research participant matching Sells analysis of data Conducts for-profit research Sells anonymous DNA profile Identifies relatives Identifies criminals Not comfortable with any smart doorbell Sends video/images Sends alerts Social network uploads AI identifies unknown people AI identifies faces faster Access clips with warrant Sexual offender matches Sexual offender alerts Police access to archives Real-time police access Not comfortable with any facial recognition Matches in workplace Unlocks door Spots shoplifters Determines age/gender Tracks eye movements Mugshot matches DMV matches Attribute detection Watches roads 24/7 Real-time crowd scanning Watches housing project Not comfortable with any * Some practices occur under specific or narrow circumstances, like with additional consent forms, opt-ins, or if you use specific services or technologies.

Note: Smart doorbell practices reflect those by major technology companies.

Surveys have found how many Americans are willing to make these kinds of trades, sacrificing a little privacy for a little benefit.

While it’s difficult to precisely rank privacy risks, we sorted our scenarios (some real, some that we can imagine happening soon) from most to least invasive based on conversations with experts. Judging whether a practice is “invasive” isn’t a science, of course. It’s more like a gut feeling, and it depends on how you feel about your own privacy, how much you value strangers’ privacy and the trust you have in corporations and law enforcement.

But the results also emphasize a quirk in our digital behavior: People rarely change what they do online, even when they express serious concerns about how their data is used. This is sometimes called the privacy paradox.

“One of the reasons people say one thing and do another is they don’t know what’s going on,” said Lee Rainie, the director of internet and technology research at the Pew Research Center. “It’s not that they’re being hypocritical, or that they’re mouthing one thing and immediately dismissing it in another moment. It’s that they don’t actually know.”

Researchers studying the paradox say internet companies make it hard for users to judge their privacy risks. Users might feel like they have no choice but to use services like email or social networks. The sites might also make it hard to learn about all of their data practices. Facebook, for example, has a lengthy Data Policy, but it’s written so broadly that it's nearly impossible to figure out what exactly they do with your data. Just signing up for a digital service often means consenting to all kinds of data use and collection.

Under those conditions, is it surprising people aren’t changing their behavior?

[As technology advances, will it continue to blur the lines between public and private? Sign up for Charlie Warzel’s limited-run newsletter to explore what’s at stake and what you can do about it.]

Trusting Social Media

The paradox is clearest with social media, which has been a focus of privacy concerns for decades. Facebook, for example, has endured a barrage of bad press over the past few years, including the fallout from Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which a political consulting company harvested information from millions of unsuspecting users to build detailed profiles on voters (a practice it ended in 2015). Even so, Facebook reported late last year that its number of daily active users in the United States and Canada remained steady at 185 million.

Until recently, Facebook did a version of many of the practices listed here.

Does Facebook do this, or has it? if you provide it collects personal information about me uses friends' posts to send me targeted advertisements lets companies upload customer lists so they can send me targeted advertising until April 2018 buys information about me from third parties on some sites receives details about my activity from other websites at some retailers receives information on what I buy in physical stores after granting permission lets third parties download basic information on my friends without their consent until April 2015 (after granting permission) lets third parties download information on my friends, like their relationship status and interests, without their consent it was tested in 2016 serves me targeted ads on a smart TV app that has a relationship with the website if you enable location services might know when I walk into into a physical store using the location I share with the phone app

So far, percent of our readers were comfortable with sites collecting personal data. But that doesn’t mean those basic practices come without risk. Agreeing to those basic kinds of data collection enrolls users in Facebook's entire data ecosystem.

Artificial intelligence “can make all of these things far worse,” added Joseph Turow, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the lead author on a 2018 study about modern surveillance. He said running machine learning — a branch of artificial intelligence — on basic information collected by social networks can allow them to “infer things that I couldn’t even imagine a company could learn.”

New Privacy Frontier: DNA

Is this already happening? uses my DNA to offer clues about my genealogy uses my DNA to determine specific health risks like cancer uses data from surveys I complete on the site to build a richer profile about me if you opt in invites me to participate in pharmaceutical research if my DNA profile matches research needs if you opt in sells an analysis of my anonymous/aggregated DNA profile to third parties if you opt in uses my DNA profile to conduct research on behalf of pharma companies if you opt in sells my anonymous DNA profile to third parties as part of paid research projects if you opt in lets customers identify relatives by matching DNA to other customers lets law enforcement agencies register as users, which lets them look for criminals by matching DNA profiles (without a warrant)

Genetic companies like 23andMe and Ancestry analyze customer DNA to provide clues about genealogy and health risks. But the data also offers another potential revenue stream: repackaging it as valuable data for pharmaceutical companies, colleges and researchers.

Both 23andMe and Ancestry allow customers to opt into research collaborations with third parties — relationships the companies say will lead to scientific breakthroughs.

Ancestry said it has no current for-profit ventures and only one nonprofit collaboration with the University of Utah. But in 2015, it partnered with the biotech research company Calico to analyze anonymized data from its trove of genetic samples and, possibly, commercialize their findings.

The deal ended last year, and its financial terms were never released.

23andMe said it’s currently partnering with pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline and recently collaborated with Genentech, a subsidiary of the Swiss pharma giant Roche. Past collaborations also include Grunenthal, Celmatix, Lundbeck and Milken Institute, and two with Pfizer.

The company said the vast majority of their partnerships use de-identified and aggregated data (so it’s pooled with other genetic profiles and summarized, removing identifying information). Other collaborations involved sharing parts of your DNA profile, stripped of additional identifying information like your name. 23andMe emphasized they provide several different opt-ins and consent forms before customers are enrolled. But privacy experts have questioned whether consenting to long documents full of legal terms is the best approach.

“The classic notice-and-consent regime that has been the anchor of all kinds of things — not just online transactions but who’s in medical trials and who is getting what kind of medical treatments – that regime is a complicated one,” said Mr. Rainie. “Especially when there are lots of little encounters, lots of little transactions, where a notice-and-consent format might be implicated, people are confused by all of this.”

In our poll, percent of readers were comfortable with pharmaceutical companies profiting from their genetic material. Meanwhile, 23andMe said 80 percent of its customers agree to enroll in research during registration, when they see several consent forms in a row. This consent form allows for their de-identified DNA information to be used for research projects, some of them funded by pharmaceutical companies. The company said that the enrollment process was approved by an outside ethics review board.

Context and Combinations Matter

Is this already happening? in at least some schools uses facial recognition to match my face against a list of employees in my workplace planned for a Brooklyn building checks my face against a database of tenants in my apartment building tool is being marketed checks my face against a database of known shoplifters in a Walgreens pilot uses facial analysis to determine my age and gender in a Walgreens pilot tracks where I look in a store not in real time allows police to match my face against a mugshot database not in real time allows police to match my faces against a driver's license database an Israeli company claims to do this interprets the features on my face to guess other attributes about me in a pilot project monitors major roads or bridges 24/7 in the U.K. lets police departments scan crowds in real time in New York, according to a news report watches a subsidized housing project to identify people

All facial recognition practices listed here are happening somewhere in the world today, signalling how A.I. can be combined with video surveillance to create new privacy risks. New York City experimented with using facial recognition on drivers as they crossed bridges and tunnels around Manhattan. And an Israeli startup claims to be able to identify specific attributes like “high IQ” or “terrorist.” But in most cases, it’s hard to know exactly where and how the burgeoning technology is being used.

“For all of these, we know the capability is being advertised, but don't necessarily know if anyone is using the technology for that purpose,” said Clare Garvie, senior associate at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown University Law Center.

While each piece of technology in our poll comes with some privacy risks, the most invasive applications can come when those technologies are used in tandem like this.

It’s possible to imagine how combining facial recognition with drones, or connecting it to a citywide network of real-time cameras, could suddenly make the technology far more invasive.

“It’s not the individual collections of online activity that’s the problem,” said Bruce Schneier, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and author of “Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World.” “It’s the correlation of offline activity, and location, and income estimates, and so on. It’s not cameras on drones, it’s cameras on drones plus automatic face recognition, plus activity monitoring, plus predictive behavioral algorithms. It’s not any one individual privacy invasion – it’s all of them used together.”

Stuart A. Thompson is the graphics director for The New York Times Opinion Section.