I know that my cellphone leaves a trail of digital breadcrumbs but I’ve never thought much about who might be following me.

Or whether their motivation is sinister or benign.

I suppose it’s natural to assume the former.

The notion that someone is tracking you wherever you go might seem to confirm that technology, even as it seems to make our lives easier, inevitably has a malevolent side.

It is the classic conundrum.

In exchange for being able to check football scores while hiking to the top of Eagle Cap — something we didn’t realize we needed until we found out we could do it — we must discard the anonymity that we enjoyed before smartphones became ubiquitous.

But the situation is not so simple, the dichotomy not so distinct.

I was fascinated to learn, during the Baker County Board of Commissioners meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 22, about one way that cellphone data can be used.

Commissioners approved a request from Jessica Hobson, the county’s tourism marketing director, to sign a one-year contract, for $20,500, with Datafy.

The company, from Ogden, Utah, collects cellphone data to help tourism officials advertise their attractions and events in places whose residents, according to phone data, have previously visited those attractions or attended the events.

The basic idea, Hobson said, is that Datafy reports, by showing her where Baker County visitors live, can help her refine her marketing campaigns.

For instance, if relatively few people from, say, northern California are coming to Baker County, then it probably doesn’t make sense to spend much money promoting the county in that region.

There’s nothing nefarious about this sort of “data mining” — a wholly appropriate term, I think, given Baker County’s history of extracting valuable metals from its geologic smorgasbord.

Datafy tracks phones but not, strictly speaking, the people in whose pockets or purses the devices spend most of their time.

Hobson said the company can’t get names or other personal information. Rather, its reports — and their value for tourism marketing — are based on where phones are registered.

As an example, Hobson said she could potentially solicit a report about visitors in Geiser-Pollman Park during Miners Jubilee. The report would show where the phones in the park during the event were registered.

Reports can be fine-tuned to focus on particular periods or destinations, she said.

The one-year contract with Datafy, for $20,500, seems to me something of a bargain. The county will pay the contract with lodging tax revenue, which is paid by guests at motels, vacation rental homes and other lodging establishments.

Lodging tax revenue has more than doubled over the past several years, reaching a record of $954,000 for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2024.

The county spends quite a bit of the money on advertising and other promotions designed to attract visitors to the county, where they will spend money not only for lodging but for meals, fuel, souvenirs and all manner of other things that benefit the local economy.

It’s inherently sensible, then, for the county to try to ensure that it is marketing the county in places that already are contributing to the tourism economy.

Without cellphone data, though, Hobson and other people who promote the county to tourists generally have to rely on anecdotal information.

I’m eager to have a look at the reports that Hobson hope to start getting from Datafy.

The data will be quite a lot more useful than, say, counting license plates in a parking lot.

Jayson Jacoby is the editor of the Baker City Herald. Contact him at 541-518-2088 or jjacoby@bakercityherald.com.