Resolution: Get Spied on Less

I considered repeating the usual New Year’s resolutions again this year – eating better, exercising more, listen more than talking, getting through that stack of unopened books…all worthy goals. But this year I am going to prioritize personal data safety by reducing my exposure to electronic surveillance.

While most of us are concerned about the amount of electronic spying that goes on in our modern lives, in most cases, the blame falls squarely on our own shoulders. We want to be able to search for things online with quick and accurate results. We also prefer ads (if we must see them) for things relevant to us. Everyone reading this has decided (as I have) to have an electronic tracking device in our back pockets that sees where we are at every moment in fine detail and records our personal data as we send and receive information.

In fact, every selfie we take, every child’s birthday we record, contains metadata that details exactly where we were, down to the finest GPS locations, and the precise second we took that photo or recorded that video. Our phones often know the name of the people in the images, as well as a digital explanation of what we are looking at. (As an eye-opening test, look at your phone’s photo gallery and type in the search box ‘dogs’ or ‘kids’ for an idea of how our data is being recorded).

While hardware and software companies assure us that our data is anonymous, the fact that it knows where we live and work proves that anyone spying on our (commercially available) data can figure out who we are in less time than it takes for Elon Musk to earn a hundred dollars.

Unless we decide to become Luddites, we cannot avoid every instance of electronic spying on our lives. But we can reduce the risk of sharing too much personal data by paying a little attention to how we interact with the cyber world.

One of the easiest decisions to make is to use a safer web browser and search engine when we are online. Opera and Brave are browsers that provide better personal security than the most popular browsers. I find Firefox has very secure options (and is relatively easy to use). This means it collects minimal personal data, has built-in malware protection, and has a built-in ability to block a site from tracking you. If you are very security conscious, Firefox has tools that make website viewing very secure, including an icon that can tell you if a site is attempting to record your data.

Protecting your email address is a feature that is becoming available with many browsers like Firefox, Safari, and DuckDuckGo. We have all been annoyed at receiving emails trying to sell things to us from sources we are certain we have never given permission to contact us. That’s because someone we willingly supplied our email to turned around and sold our contact information to someone else. Apple, Firefox and others have systems that allow you to fill our subscription forms using an alias email address, so your real address cannot be shared with others. The Firefox version is free.

A less effective, but easy alternative is to create an email address that is only used for sign-ups, like SusanSpam300@whatever.com. This does not prevent tracking but ensures that all the spam goes to a folder that you can ignore.

Web searches tend to generate the most personal tracking problems, and the most popular engine, Google, is one of the worst examples. Of course, by deciding to use Google, we are giving parent company Alphabet permission to use our data for advertising purposes. That’s why it is often said that ‘when something is free, it means that you are the product being sold’.

DuckDuckGo is an excellent alternative to Google. Based in Pennsylvania, DDG eliminates the type of tracking software that is built into Google. The search results are based on the Bing engine, which in the beginning, was not as effective as Google. But I have found the quality of the search results to have improved to the point where I find DDG just as good (and occasionally better) than Google. All web browsers allow you to change your search engine option, so you can try DDG and others for comparison.

But what if you prefer keeping your reliance on Google? It is possible (but not simple) to have your personal information removed from Google searches. Note that Google is not obligated to remove your personal information, but you can make the request. One thing you can do is manage how Google treats your data if you have a Google account. When you go to the Google home page, click on your name at the top, then select ‘Data and Privacy’. You will then have a list of options that will allow you to do things like stop web tracking activity. (There are many options, and you may be surprised to see the long list of personal data being collected).

There are services that you can use to see how your data is being personally tracked. Delete Me and Norton LifeLock both provide a service that alerts you to how you are being tracked and can automatically generate personal data removal requests. The Delete Me blog page is a good place to learn how to delete tacking data on your own.  https://joindeleteme.com/blog/

One of the easiest things you can do to protect your data is to enable “auto updates” on your devices. This installs the latest security software protection. Both Apple and Android devices have this option in their settings. Android users, in particular, tend to use out of date protection. Switching it on is free and reduces the possibility of data hacking.

If you are an iPhone user and are very concerned with your iCloud data, the newest IOS allows for near-total encryption. Setting it up is complicated. You can explore it here. (Note that the FBI is quite upset about this!)

The single most important thing that we can do to practice better data hygiene is to go to our most used web sites and services and change our passwords. Everyone knows that we should change passwords more often, but we rarely do it. The day is coming when passwords may become obsolete (Apple will be introducing a password elimination system that will use biometrics to sign onto web sites, and others will be doing the same). Until then, we have passwords.

Many of our passwords are broken into and sometimes offered for sale to bad actors on ‘dark web’ sites. We all know people who have had their social media personalities hacked. Why wait? Update your passwords now.

You can use the built-in password generators that browsers like Safari and Firefox have. If you use a password vault system these services will generate and remember passwords for you. If you want to create new ones yourself, avoid using the same password on multiple services. Do not use your current or prior address, or names of your immediate family members. One simple system to generate passwords is to hyphenate small groups of words and numbers (Dress-1941-jumP-milk) The hyphens satisfy the need to use symbols. The passwords can be stored in a vault like Apple Keychain or a password vault provider.

You cannot read that shelf of books in less than a few months, changing diet and exercising are worthy goals that need to be done every day, over time. But you can join me in resolving to make our personal data safer and more secure this week. Most of this effort costs only a little time. If doing this prevents even one personal hack or data leak it will be one of the best resolutions you can ever make. Happy New Year!