Cue up some Kenny Loggins and some teenage angst, and remember back to practicing dance moves in the mirror. You probably tried some moves you saw on MTV, some moves your best friend showed you, and tried some stuff you came up with on your own.
You probably did a lot of that behind closed doors, but why bother if you have nothing to hide?
Would it have been a big deal if your brother walked in on you and caught it on video? In the grand scheme of things no, it wouldn’t have been. It’s not like your social security number or other sensitive personal information is being posted to Instagram. But let’s imagine things were slightly different. Instead of there being just a slight chance of someone walking in on you, it was a certainty. You may have ultimately decided that you don’t care, you are going to dance in front of the mirror anyway you can still see how someone always watching could be a deterrent for others.
That’s why the fundamental right to privacy matters. Not just because you need to be able to test out your new moves before breaking them out on the dance floor, but for all of those little things you test out over the course of your life which ultimately add up to your identity. The right to privacy is the protection of an individual’s right to decide who they are.
You should be free to read a self-help book without family, friends, and strangers reading over your shoulder. You should have the space to figure out how to be a better father, how to be more outgoing, how to be more mindful. The less privacy you have (the more personal information others have access to), the less space to make those changes happen.
If you think about it, some of the greatest social changes have come about at least partially thanks to privacy. Without privacy, the American Revolution may not have happened. Without privacy, supporting the underground railroad would have been even more dangerous. Without privacy, there is less space for new ideas to breathe and gain support.
How to Protect Your Privacy as an Individual
So you’ve been convinced either thanks to, or in spite of, this article that privacy is an important right, and you probably want to know what steps you can take to keep your data privacy as intact as possible. There are a number of steps that you can take as an individual to protect your online privacy.
Use a VPN
When you’re at home, the use of a VPN is less likely to be useful. Where it’s going to be most effective for data protection is when you’re out and about connecting to public wifi networks. A VPN protects the contents of your traffic from people who would otherwise be able to snoop on that traffic, whether it’s a criminal, a government, or a corporation.
My favorite way to illustrate what a VPN does is the neighbor next door. If you and your neighbor stick your heads out the window and yell out to each other your plans for the weekend, anyone in the neighborhood who cares to listen can find out what those plans are. However, if you and your neighbor instead talk through cans attached by string, then people in the neighborhood might be able to see that you’re talking, but won’t be able to see what you’re talking about. The VPN is the can and the string for data security: it lets people know that you’re talking to someone, but that’s all.
Be Judicious About Installing Apps and Software
What you install matters. Permissions you grant to various vendors aren’t always just in your best interest. When you grant access to the files on your device, that access exists whether relevant to the software or not. While many apps and softwares will treat your devices with some dignity, many others will not prioritize data privacy.
Do some research before clicking on install. Have a trusted source you can look to for guidance on whether a particular piece of software or app is useful and trustworthy.
Use Trusted Browser Privacy Tools
Here’s a good chance for you to ask your trusted source for help. Get good ad and cookie’ blockers to bolster your online privacy protection. A cookie is a tiny file that your browser saves as a way to remind websites who you are. Most websites can’t work without cookies. A cookie let’s you log in to your accounts and see your personal information. Without the cookie, the website wouldn’t know which computer to show your information to.
However, cookies can also be less useful to you, and more useful to other people. Some cookies collect information about every website you visit. Some cookies are there to give you personalized ads. And some cookies are collecting your data to sell it to others. Cookies are often served to your computer alongside ads, so a good cookie blocker can go a long way. Always get a recommendation from a source you trust, but an example solution would be Privacy Badger, by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Another type of privacy tool you can install is forced HTTPS browsing. HTTPS browsing is the more secure version of HTTP. It kind of works like a VPN does, but on a slightly weaker level. In the VPN analogy, using the cans connected with strings would only let people see that your house is communicating with another house. With HTTPS, while an eavesdropper would not be able to understand the content of your conversation, they would be able to tell which people in the houses were talking. While a VPN might seem like a catch-all, having an HTTPS tool can supplement the security of the VPN. There are a number of ways to accomplish forced HTTPS, but one example solution is HTTPS Everywhere, also by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Don’t Take Quizzes that Require a Facebook Login
You might see a fun quiz floating around your social media feed to find out which Game of Thrones character you are, or what dog breed is most like you. If they ask you to log in using a social media profile before you can take the quiz or see your answers, there’s a good chance that the quiz exists solely to get personal information about you and have little concern for your personal data. Not only are you giving the company basic personal information from your profile, but you are also answering a lot of questions which can give data brokers insight into you as a person. While those insights are often used for presenting relevant advertisements, those insights can also be used to provoke emotional responses and take advantage of vulnerable populations.
Scrub Your Devices and Accounts from Time to Time
Every once in a while, look through all of the apps on your phone or computer, and remove any software that you haven’t used in a while. That app that you installed to set up your Austin City Limits schedule is not necessary the other 362 days of the year delete it for now. Leaving unused apps and software installed on your device provides an insight into your life for companies who are not currently offering you any benefit. You’ll also get the bonus of keeping your device uncluttered and performing at a better clip.
If you often log in to websites or apps using Google, Facebook or some other social profile, then go to your relevant account settings and remove authorization for apps and services that are no longer relevant to you. Here are some links where you can review and remove logins for some of the standard social profiles:
Phew! Wow, okay, you’re a few steps closer to ensuring your personal privacy! Yay! Now, how do you go about ensuring your company is protective of the personal privacy of its clients, customers, users or employees?
How to be Protective of Privacy as a Business
When you run a business, you control what privacy options are available to people who interact with it. There are some contexts in which you must share data on people, whether it’s necessary to perform some function, part of the sale of a business, or some other reason, there are plenty of legitimate, consumer-friendly ways to share people’s data. Here are some things you can do to ensure people’s data is treated with respect and simultaneously improve your privacy practices and risk management.
Offer a Lot of Options
There are a number of reasons why customers, users, or employees might share different kinds of personal data with you, and there are a number of reasons why they might change their mind. When building out your processes and services try to integrate personal choice into the mix. For example, give people a privacy settings dashboard where they can delete, change, or add information about themselves give them those options for each individual piece of information. You can also give them choices in your privacy settings about what happens with their data. If you offer marketing emails, give them a way to easily opt out of those emails. Try to think of ways to allow people to easily pop in and out of your system in a variety of circumstances to give them control over their personal information.
Be Privacy-Minded when Using Third-Party Services or Bringing on Partners
Think of all of the services which make your company possible: you probably have an internet service provider, an email server, a database provider, a CRM tool, and more. When you take on a partner to help run your business, you are trusting your data with those partners. Make sure that the partners you choose provide at least as much respect of personal data as your own company does. Make sure that they are using appropriate security measures to prevent unauthorized disclosures of people’s data. Look into whether they have had any security breaches or big privacy scandals in recent years. It’s all fairly straightforward stuff, it just needs to be on your radar.
Take Only What You Need
There are pieces of information that are necessary for providing services to people, such as an email address. But there’s a lot of information that just isn’t necessary to run your brand effectively. You might be tempted to gather more information than you need just in case, or you might be gathering data that used to be integral and no longer has a purpose. Every once in a while, have a team meeting and ask yourselves, what data do we actually need? Practice good risk management – toss the stuff that isn’t necessary for business or legal reasons you can’t accidentally mishandle it if you don’t have it in the first place.
Stay Informed
The tech landscape is changing every day. New tools, new methods, and new laws to deal with privacy are always arising, so what worked last year may not be enough this year. Keep up to date with what’s going on in the world of privacy by following updates to the legal system, podcasts, and blogs (like this one). If keeping up to speed on privacy is outside of your wheelhouse, find someone to help. Privacy rights are identity rights, and data should be treated with dignity.
