By: Robin Dietrich
How to balance your personal data security and the cost of maintaining your data safe
Barely a day goes by that we do not hear or read about some new threat to our privacy. From the paranoid genius of Orwell painting a haunting image of a world in which not even our thoughts are safe from scrutiny, to the Snowden files revealing that in this modern era, every bit we register on an electronic device is potentially being recorded, stored, and investigated; From the bizarre pre-programmed and hyper-consumerist of of Huxley’s Brave New World to Cambridge Analytica using the results of online quizzes filled out for fun to tailor election-turning advertisements to its unwitting victims, there seem to be many reasons to be wary of the seeming blessing that the internet and all of the services it brings us to seem to be.
Nevertheless, while many today are either unaware of what dangers their prolific sharing of information can pose to them, or have made peace with any of the risks inherent in their carefree behavior, a lot of others can be seen covering the lenses of their laptop webcams and deleting their social media accounts in response to the aforementioned incidents.
The aim of this article is neither to advise its readers to turn into hermit Luddites, sporting the latest in tin foil hat fashion, nor to make anyone feel bad about their hobbies or habits.
What this article hopes to accomplish, is to give you, dear reader, the tools to be able to evaluate the level of risk and the level of privacy you are most comfortable with, keeping in mind both what is possible and what is likely to be relevant to you.
The Cost of Carelessness
Most people would probably agree that not taking any measures to protect your privacy is a bad idea, but it bears specifying what risks you run specifically.
Bad Reputation
Whether it be a current or potential employer, your partner or your family, or just any random stranger online, publishing certain material online can certainly lead to a loss of reputation and trust in your judgement. Are you considering these possibilities when uploading photos to Instagram?
Susceptibility to Fraud and Identity Theft
For anyone who might be interested in doing you harm, scamming you, or defrauding you, going to check out your social media accounts is a natural first step. For many companies, it is still sufficient to know your date of birth and address in order to identify as you on the phone. Are you making this information public? So called “security questions” about things like your mother’s maiden name are particularly vulnerable to this type of investigation.
Legal / Political Repercussions
Depending on your country of residence, the information you share through social media could lead to serious problems with the authorities. While it will come as no surprise that in most countries any person could sue you for defamation if they feel that the content you shared insulted them personally and that courts are free to use any evidence of illegal activity against you, it is important to note that in some countries sharing details like your sexual orientation or your political affiliation can already have unpleasant consequences for you.
“Who Cares About My Data?”
… is a question that many people might rightfully ask when confronted with data security questions. Many might not have considered all possible agents in this field.
Corporations
Companies like Google and Facebook make money mainly by tailoring advertisements to your preferences — that is also why they are perhaps the ones that have the most accurate information about you. Even if their only intention is to use it to give you better ads, the fact that they have it predisposes it to being stolen by agents with less harmless intentions.
Political Parties
As seen in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, information about your preferences, opinions, and even unintentionally revealed personality traits, can be used to tailor political advertisements to you, that is just as effective as commercial advertisements. It should come as no surprise that entities that are looking to get you to vote for them could derive great value from this possibility.
Security Institutions
As revealed by the Snowden leaks and many subsequent revelations about the scope and nature of the surveillance apparatus of intelligence agencies, the tools available to monitor basically all electronic communications are vast and powerful. In order to maintain their capabilities, some political forces are even pushing for weakening or banning private encryption methods altogether.
Family / Partners / Exes / “Admirers”
Anxious and/or controlling parents, as well as both current and former romantic partners, can have a strong interest in monitoring you at “every breath you take, every move you make”, so they may have an incentive to either openly or covertly use the information you willingly spread to the internet to achieve this goal. Even if everyone in your immediate surroundings is trusting and trustworthy, there might still be secret admirers who are more than happy that they no longer need to rely on bushes and binoculars to have an eye on you.
The Weapons of Privacy
To be able to safeguard our privacy, everyone of us has a number of options at their disposal. Some of them are quite simple and easy to implement, others require a great deal of patience, effort, and restraint.
Stay offline
Perhaps the most radical, but also potentially most effective method. If you do not upload any data, it’s going to be a lot harder for anyone to track you. Unfortunately, this doesn’t protect you from other people uploading pictures and videos of you.
Don’t upload anything you don’t want everybody to see
If you are uploading something to any website, you should be aware that there is always some possibility for it to be made public for anyone who cares to look at it. The only sure way to avoid this is to never upload anything that you want to remain private.
Limit Social Media Use
A rather simple method, that is still quite hard to pull off for a large number of people.
Some ways to limit your use of social media are by..
- limit the number of social media services you use to the minimum.
- uninstalling mobile apps from your smartphone and only using a computer for social media.
- Using App- and Website blocking apps or browser add-ons like BlockSite.
Use the Privacy Settings
One of the most basic and simplest methods: make sure to use the privacy settings each social media service provides to ensure that the only people to see what you upload are the ones you want to see it.
Use curated / fake accounts
You can create a publicly viewable account that has the purpose of being visible to everyone, where you only publish unremarkable content while keeping your connections up through a hidden account that doesn’t even need to have your real name. This way you have a public facade to show potential employers and curious strangers, while you still get to use social media to most of its full advantage.
Take care of who you add
While for a public personality (or an “influencer”) having the greatest amount of followers or friends is always best, it might be unwise for you to just add random people that you don’t know to your circle of friends. Remember: anyone can create a profile and upload some images. find out more about how to spot a fake profile at www.wikihow.com/Spot-a-Catfish
Secure your accounts
In order to protect your accounts from people who might want to steal your identity, blackmail you, or simply play tricks on you, you should take care of protecting the access to your online accounts carefully. Check out these links to find out how to…
- Create a strong password that is easy to remember: xkcd.com/936/
- Secure your Account in general: support.google.com/accounts/answer/46526?hl=en
- Find some more tools at the aptly named www.privacytools.io
Go for full transparency
One antidote to Paranoia is also to just stop caring about what people can see about you. if you don’t have any fear of repercussions in an either personal, professional, or legal context, it might not be necessary for you to suffer the costs of fear.
The Cost of Fear
Fearing a loss of privacy can in itself have a number of negative side effects. When you are trying to protect your private space and private information from those who might care to intrude on it, you are necessarily imposing restrictions on yourself.
Stress
Fearing for your privacy every step of the way can really dampen your enjoyment of many experiences. Do you want to ask everyone who takes a picture of you to delete it immediately? Do you stay up at night wondering if someone will ever see that embarrassing Google search you made when you were 15?
Social Costs
With more people having a Facebook account than a simple phone number and SMS being increasingly seen as a weird relic of the past, refusing to participate in social media can have some social costs, especially in a context like ESTIEM, where most of the interactions generally occur online.
Worse user experience
Adding more layers of security to your online presence is a bit like adding more locks to your door: sure, it is harder for outsiders to get in, but it also makes it harder for you to get home. The general air of mistrust that is required to properly protect your access data and keep your pool of contacts restricted also lessens your opportunities for positive experiences.
The Aftermath of the Catastrophe
This 13-minute video tells the story about a fictional hack of the google log-in mechanism. Watch it if you’re curious, otherwise, continue to the
!SPOILER!
At the end of the video, the narrator makes the point that the consequences of even a full disclosure of all your private data are very likely to not affect your life very deeply in the long term; in his words: “your life doesn’t depend on a single point of failure”. Have you ever imagined what it would imply if it were to happen to you? Perhaps you might find out that the consequences are less dramatic than you would first think.
So while it is important to be careful with your data and critical about what use others can make of it, remember that more likely than not, your life does not depend on it.
Hopefully, you now have some more tools at your disposal to make an informed decision.
Credit: 57th issue of the ESTIEM Magazine
You can now read the whole 57issue on the ISSUU platform!
