5 Easy Steps to Secure Your Data in 2019

Data privacy. Two words encompassing the biggest trial we as a digital society are facing. Our everyday life is so utterly entwined with the online world that we are more of a digital society than anything else. Siri is our personal assistant, our Fitbit is our personal trainer, and Waze is the ever-present light that guides us through the darkness of 5PM traffic.

For a lot of people this relatively new way of existing couldn’t be any more convenient. However, some of us in the crowd are raising our hands nervously to ask, “What happened to our privacy?”. If you’re tuned into the correct frequencies you’ll hear about the hundreds of data breaches that take place annually, the uncountable occurrences of ransomware that happen on a daily basis, and don’t forget the little man listening to you through your microphone and watching you through your webcam (just kidding… I think?). (If you’re new to this space, a great place to get some context is Symantec’s annual Internet Security Threat Reports).

Joking aside, user tracking is a threat that sits at the forefront of our daily existence. Any person with a fairly capable smartphone will most likely have at least one app tracking their physical location, down to just a few yards. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, your online activity — also tracked when left undefended — gives such a detailed and comprehensive representation of you that those with access know more about you than you’re sure to be comfortable with.

We understand that being uninformed can leave you in a state of perplexity when there’s data talk in the room, but there are a few simple steps you can take to increase the control you have over your personal data. Here are five of them.

1. Change your search engine

First of all — get off Google!

It’s not news to anyone that Google — and its birth-child-browser Google Chrome — are the global crowd favourites; 57.4% of internet users use Google and Chrome, a stat that is way ahead of the runner-up competitors, namely Safari with 9.9% and Firefox with 2.33%. But here’s the thing: that’s exactly why you need to find a new search engine.

Anyone should be unsettled by the idea that one sole corporation not only contains but has undefined access to the majority of internet-users’ data. Using Google’s search platforms and accompanying apps implies that you are willing to be tracked, monitored and recorded, all for the price of convenience (we suggest reading this article from the New York times that dissects the invasiveness of Google Maps alone).

The harsh reality of the blue-eyed browser is summarised amazingly well in this article by Wired:

“But Google is not a consumer software company, or even a search company. It’s an ad company. It collects exhaustive data about its users in the service of brokering ad sales around the web. To do so, Google requires an extensive understanding of the backgrounds, browsing habits, preferences, purchases, and lives of as many web users as possible, gleaned through massive data aggregation and analysis.”

The extent to which Google physically and mentally tracks your everyday movements goes so far as to say that you are no longer categorised as a human being with free will, but rather a data point that can be predicted so accurately that advertising companies will purchase your online data with return on investment guaranteed.

To avoid being a pawn in this marketing fiasco, we suggest you swap over to a privacy-oriented search engine like Firefox or Brave. Firefox alone is the most privacy-concerned and customisable web browser. It allows for tracking protection in the private browsing mode, an ad-free reading mode and a social-sharing tool. It also has cool extras such as keeping the search box separate from the address box, something that is surprisingly important in maintaining some anonymity in your online searches. Browsers that use a single box are suspected to send all things searched to a search provider for further data aggregation.

2. Change your browser

There are a few repeats here, but for good reason. Get off Google! It’s a double whammy to use Google as both your search engine and browser as you’re essentially submitting to the surveillance capitalism that operates the online world.

There is no doubt that Google is a respectable company that has accomplished some astounding things since its beginnings, and they are trying to tackle the issue of data privacy, their goal being “to respect Google users and help them understand and control their data as they generate it in real time on Google’s services.”. However, the unfortunate truth is that “…the internet was created for easy information exchange, not user privacy, anonymization, or encrypted communication”, and Google is the embodiment of this.

With love in our hearts, we encourage you to find a new browser. There are a number of relatively reliable and trustworthy browsers available to you: DuckDuckGo is a popular one with it’s reassuring tagline “The search engine that doesn’t track you”. Because of its focus on your privacy, personalised searches are a bit amiss here; you’ll need to refine your search from “coffee shops near me” to “coffee shops in the East London area”. Small differences such as this are, in our opinion, a fair trade off for your privacy.

Qwant is another browser that comes with rave reviews due to its lack of user tracking — and thus lack of personalisation — yet relatively rich user experience. Overall, there are a number of privacy-friendly web browsers out there but it’s up to you to spend the time establishing which one will work best for you.

3. Contain your social media pages

This is a feature that I am very excited about. Gone are the days where my Google searches instantaneously start to correlate with the ads exploding all over my Facebook and Instagram page. Yes, I Googled a sauerkraut recipe once, but that does not mean I want to dedicate my eating habits solely to that of a German vegetarian — much to the surprise of my Facebook ad feed.

It’s important to face the fact that Facebook has become the social media equivalent of Google in that it’s of equal influence within the tech world. Expanding its grasp to now own Instagram and Whatsapp (and many other companies), Facebook’s relationship with users’ data privacy carries a hauntingly unnerving undertone. What’s more, with the 2019 news that Facebook plans to merge Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp messaging into one platform, eavesdropping on users has never been so temptingly easy.

Once again, an alternative search engine saves the day (if you let it). Firefox has introduced the Facebook Container Extension, allowing you to isolate your social media pages from the rest of your web browsing. As for the messaging platform, this is a bit trickier. Choosing a completely isolated platform like Signal only works if those you are texting with will swap over with you — unlikely, but not impossible.

4. Create strong, complex passwords

You’ve likely heard this one before, but paying attention to the intricacies of your passwords is an important factor in defending your online accounts from hackers. Computers are capable of generating millions of passwords per second, likely to crack any basic passwords like “Daisy123”.

It seems like a monumental task to create complex passwords for the multitude of accounts we all have online, but — as always in this fantastically convenient world — there are tools available to do the job for you. Password generators are freely available online, favourites including LastPass and Avast. These sites allow you to customise your password based on the elements it needs (numbers, capitalisation, etc.), providing you with a unique and secure password.

What goes smashingly well with your endless list of now complex passwords? A password manager. Another saving grace, password managers allow you to store all your passwords in one protected place, meaning you only need to remember one password — so make sure it’s a good one.

There are a number of great password managers out there, such as Dashlane and LastPass, however few of these are for free. Again, choosing where to invest your money could be the determining factor of how secure your private your data remains. If you’re on a limited budget, which is the case for many of us, Firefox could be your saving grave with their own private and completely free password manager Lockwise.

5. Use a VPN

Our final tip for easy online protection is using a VPN.

A large amount of users are under the impression that going into incognito mode is the only protection needed against online tracking. This is entirely false. Incognito mode may work wonders for eliminating any trace of your search history on your physical device, but this truth does not apply to the actual web.

Using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) is an easy way to ensure that you’re sharing as little information as possible while you surf the internet. The issue that a VPN deals with is essentially your IP address; without a VPN, your searches can be traced back to your IP address, which can be used to track down your rough geographical location (amongst other things). Using a VPN redirects your online activity through a seperate, possibly distant server somewhere out there on the internet. A VPN is therefore a great tool against user tracking.

A solid VPN - like a good password manager - often comes with a price tag (without asking for an arm and a leg) - for instance the highly reputable NortonVPN is currently charging just $2.99 per month for online protection. Although we would recommend considering coughing up a few dollars a month for your protection, there are companies out there that are doing their part with no cost to you. ProtonVPN, for instance, offers a free VPN service that has no data limitation on free users.

There are plenty of resources, articles and advice available online that hand out action points for protecting and controlling your personal data. We recommend you invest the time in educating yourself on the tools and services available, as cases of compromised data are exponentially on the rise. Now that our everyday existence is rapidly morphing into the digital world, we have to arm ourselves with the correct security tools — just as you would lock your passport in a safe and secure place in your home, or split your life savings into several bank accounts.

We leave you with a question: do you want to control your data, or be unknowingly controlled by it?

The Global Citizen Foundation is a non-profit organisation that is committed to creating a global framework for digital sovereignty. What actions are you taking to protect yourself in the new digital world? Let us know in the comments below, and follow us for weekly articles on all things data.