Your day, on camera

Pick the stop that bugs you most and do its three steps today. That's a real improvement, and it takes about ten minutes. Where a Stocklens pair genuinely helps, we say so. Where it doesn't, we leave it out.

01 · 7:00 AM · The front door

What gets recorded

Video doorbells record whoever walks up, plus a good stretch of sidewalk and street. Roughly a quarter of U.S. households have one now, and some models can run face recognition.

Who ends up with it

The owner, the doorbell company's cloud, and, if the owner says yes, local police. Some doorbell apps let agencies request footage from everyone nearby.

Three free steps

• If you own one, turn off police and community footage requests in the app unless you actually want them.
• Aim it at your own doorway, not the street or your neighbor's door, and shorten how long clips are kept.
• Turn on end-to-end encryption if your brand offers it.

Where Stocklens fits: you can't change the settings on everyone else's doorbell. IRX keeps your eyes covered in daylight and under the infrared these cameras switch to at night.

02 · 7:45 AM · The drive

What gets recorded

Automated license plate readers, like the Flock poles popping up at neighborhood entrances, photograph every passing car and log the time and place. In records from 200 police agencies, 99.5% of scanned plates belonged to cars that weren't suspected of anything. Many readers also catch the driver.

Your car reports on you too. Federal regulators found one major automaker collecting location and driving behavior from millions of vehicles, in some cases every few seconds, and passing it to data brokers that sell to insurers.

Who ends up with it

Plate data gets pooled and shared widely. The agencies in that study shared with about 160 other agencies on average.

Three free steps

• In your car's app and settings, opt out of driving-score, "smart driver" and data-sharing programs.
• Request your consumer disclosure file from LexisNexis to see what driving data it holds on you.
• Ask your city or county which plate-reader vendor it uses and how long it keeps the data. Many publish a transparency page.

Where Stocklens fits: it won't hide your plate. It keeps your face, especially your eyes, dark on the infrared frames these readers take at night.

03 · 12:30 PM · The store

What gets recorded

Lots of retailers run camera analytics, and some have used face recognition to match shoppers against watchlists. Loyalty programs, store apps and in-store Wi-Fi tie your visits and purchases to your name.

Who ends up with it

The retailer and its vendors, and the systems get it wrong. In 2023 the FTC banned one national pharmacy chain from using face recognition for five years after its system wrongly flagged shoppers as likely shoplifters.

Three free steps

• Skip store Wi-Fi, and turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth scanning while you shop.
• Use a loyalty number that isn't tied to your main phone or email, or check out without one.
• Look for posted biometric notices, which some states require, and ask what the store uses.

Where Stocklens fits: this is the stop where eyewear matters most. IRX covers the eye region in visible and near-infrared light, which lowers the confidence of a face match.

04 · All day · Your phone

What gets recorded

Apps collect precise location and feed it into ad markets tied to your phone's advertising ID. One location broker said it handled more than 17 billion signals a day from around a billion devices.

Who ends up with it

Data brokers, who resell it to businesses and government agencies. Regulators have had to step in to stop brokers from selling location data tied to clinics and places of worship.

Three free steps

• Review location permissions. Set apps to "While using" or "Never," and turn off precise location where it isn't needed.
• Delete your advertising ID on Android. On iPhone, turn off "Allow Apps to Request to Track."
• Delete apps you don't use. Every one is another leak.

05 · 9 to 5 · Work and school

What gets recorded

Badge systems log when you come and go. Employer laptops, phones and accounts can be monitored, often including browsing, email and messages. Many schools do the same on student devices.

Three free steps

• Keep personal browsing, email and messages on your own device and connection, not work equipment or work Wi-Fi.
• Read the monitoring or acceptable-use policy. You're usually entitled to see it.
• Don't sign into personal accounts inside a work or school browser profile.

06 · 8:00 PM · Home

What gets recorded

Many smart TVs use automatic content recognition, grabbing frequent snapshots of whatever's on screen, even from cable boxes and consoles, to figure out what you watch. Voice assistants keep their own logs.

Three free steps

• Turn off content recognition in the TV settings. Look for "Viewing Information," "Interactivity" or "Marketing Preferences."
• Put smart devices on a guest network, away from your laptops and phones.
• Review your voice assistant history and set recordings to auto-delete.

Start with one stop

Most of what helps costs nothing, and we'd rather you do the free steps first. Stocklens is for the part a settings menu can't reach: what cameras see of your face.

See the Stocklens Original →