Every time you install an application, look for something on the Internet, or simply accept cookies from a website, you leave digital traces that, when put together, create a surprisingly exact picture of what you do, think, behave, and relate to. And for a long time, this was viewed as quite a harmless trade-off: to get something for nothing and give away some personal information in return. Nowadays, this no longer applies.
Data mining is a big business, and your behavior patterns are constantly harvested, analyzed, and traded by advertisers, data miners, technology companies, and even cyber criminals. But there is good news as well: you don’t need to go into hiding to get some privacy back. In the modern world, privacy means proactively managing your digital life.
Knowing the Modern Context of Privacy Violation
In order to ensure your privacy, you first have to understand where this vulnerability is taking place. The privacy threat is not something as thrilling as a cyber robbery. Instead, it is more subtle:
- Data Brokers: Firms dedicated to combining public records, purchasing history, and applications usage information, thus forming giant databases that are sold to advertisers, insurance agencies, and recruitment firms without your prior agreement.
- Aggressive Application Permissions: Permission-seeking flashlight applications that want to access your contact list or a calculator application wanting to access your location data.
- Web Trackers: Cross-site tracking systems monitoring you on multiple websites and creating behavioral history for themselves.
- Internet-Connected Devices in Your House: Always listening microphones and cameras along with internet-enabled appliances.
Practical Steps That Will Help You to Reclaim Your Power
Being a technical expert is not required for building an impenetrable privacy wall. There are several realistic things that you can do on a daily basis.
1. Manage App Permissions and Remove Unused Account Profiles
We all have many unused apps installed on our smartphones. Just take a couple of minutes and check your device.
- Firstly, identify which apps have access to your exact location, your microphone, camera and photos. Change the permission status from “always allow” to “while using app” or “ask every time.”
- Secondly, remove the account profiles that you do not use any more. Inactive accounts on various forums and websites will be used by hackers to steal your information.
2. Switch from Your Default Browser and Search Engine
Default browsers of mainstream providers usually enable robust advertising tracking systems. Using privacy-oriented alternatives will dramatically reduce the volume of information leakage:
- Take advantage of privacy-oriented browsers such as Brave, Firefox with high-grade tracking protection, or hardened browser instances that block third-party trackers by default.
- Replace common data-collecting search engines with privacy-friendly services such as DuckDuckGo or Startpage that do not profile based on your search history.
- Add trusted browser extensions such as uBlock Origin that will remove any tracker scripts.
3. Reduce Interaction with Data Brokers
When you Google your own name on the Internet, you may be amazed to find your present city of residence, all previous addresses, names of relatives, and even phone numbers on the "people finder" websites.
- In many cases, you have the legal right to unsubscribe yourself from further information collection. You can always submit opt-out requests on popular brokers.
- Another option is to use an automated privacy tool that will continuously monitor broker databases and opt you out.
4. Learn about basic encryption
Encryption will transform your plain texts into codes that can be decoded only by authorized people:
- Use encrypted communication channels like Signal or WhatsApp in case you are discussing something sensitive or exchanging some documents. Unlike usual SMS messages, encrypted communication will provide privacy from any reading by the telecom company or hackers.
- While you are using Internet through Wi-Fi in airports or coffee shops use no-log virtual private networks (VPNs).
5. Create different personas with aliases
It is not necessary to give away your email addresses and your real phone numbers to all companies that require them:
- Use services that mask your emails (like SimpleLogin, Addy.io, or Apple’s Hide My Email) and create aliases for your online presence. In case one of the aliases will be hacked, you will be able to delete it instantly without affecting your primary email account.
- Do not put your personal information like date of birth, home address or travel plans on the social media sites.
Psychological Change: Convenience against Privacy
For a person to be able to achieve their digital privacy, there is the need for psychological change to occur. The modern apps are created in such a manner that sharing appears to be an easy task. Every time when the application requests access to the contact list or recommends something, the user needs to question themselves whether this application brings any benefits to him.The strategy of doubting becomes an inherent part of the Internet browsing.
Actions for You To Take
Privacy is not a case of one or the other, as you don’t have to toss your phone in the river or cease using any social media networks. Privacy is merely a question of setting boundaries with respect to what information you would like to reveal and how you’d like to reveal it.
By doing this, you take yourself out of the entire auction process. And in a world in which information is power, privacy is power.
