I think the only privacy protection we have - because we don't really anymore - is being lost in the masses.
Having worked on loads of telephone systems for over thirty years I can tell you about the really salacious or interesting conversations I've overheard. There are like, three of them. I could physically do it with an old butt set or even in the '80s sit at a proprietary console and pop in and out silently.
Currently phone systems are all SIP and when you're Zooming and the like it's really about the same thing. Nothing physical for you to lay your grubby mitts on. But, with access to the right spot - and that's the trick - I could sit there with a common laptop and freeware and literally capture
everything. I still have conversations saved that took place years ago. The limitation is the hard drive that fills up real fast. I had one customer in Manhattan that had offices all over the country. A plain old toll quality call is 44Kbps. 10 minutes of that on a normal workday in that network and you've got quite a pile to sift through. Anonymity comes from sheer volume.
I know that after 9/11 and the Patriot Act something very much like that is supposed to be occurring. I've heard different versions of this; the Big Ear at Fort Meade is supposed to be doing about the same thing on a
national level and they have AI just fishing for keywords that are sidelines for additional examination. So next time you're on the phone talk about the bombs you are making, jihad and so forth and I wouldn't doubt it triggers something. But whatever it is is incredibly brief and would have to rise to a much different level I would think before a human is even aware of it.
Much of this is applicable to about everything else. Someone want to really target you, you are, period. We sort of ignore the fact that we are targeted all the time with ads, blah blah and don't seem to mind. We wire our homes with cameras and little boxes that listen to us. And then what, bitch abut privacy? Eh?
Mostly you're just another face in the unwashed masses that turn the wheel of history. Had a teacher that used that phrase a little too often and I liked it.