Internet privacy and security- why it’s important and 14 simple tips on how to do it. Update and new data for 2024.

How to protect your privacy online

When I sat down to write an article about trends in technology, I had no idea how impressed I would be by the growing trend related to the Internet of Behavior (IoB). The more I delved into the topic, the more frightening it became to think about what companies know about us and how they can influence our reality – location tracking, facial recognition, operations on large data sets and combining that data with related behavioral events. All of this, of course, with the goal of serving us better and more specific ads. But are we safe? Is it safe at all to collect so much data about us?

Do you want your friends to know what you’re talking about, where you are, what you’re doing, what you’re looking for, when and how you argue with your loved ones, or what extreme emotions you’re experiencing? Or what website you are visiting and what content you are viewing? Why would you share this information with unknown companies and strangers who work there?

Billions of people share information about themselves, often unknowingly, not realizing how much information companies have about them. These in turn sell it on – in extreme cases to governments, for example.

A conscious portion of people sometimes share their data voluntarily, following the idea that “I have nothing to hide. This is a big mistake.

Privacy is an individual right. It lies at the heart of freedom of speech, association, and assembly. All of these are essential to the existence of a free and fully democratic society.

Claiming you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say.

Update 2024

Fortunately, 2024 brings a more optimistic torch than 2021, when I first wrote this guide. It turns out that consumers are increasingly exercising their rights to control their personal data. Data Subject Requests (DSRs), which allow individuals to access, delete, or prevent the sale of their personal data, increased by 246% between 2021 and 2023. More than one-third of U.S. states have enacted comprehensive privacy laws, and international regulations such as the European Union’s RODO continue to influence global privacy standards.

In addition, more than one-third of U.S. states have implemented comprehensive data privacy laws, and international regulations such as the European Union’s RODO continue to influence global standards in this area.

In 2024, 77% of consumers have become more cautious about sharing personal information compared to the previous year. However, more than 25% of consumers have experienced a data breach in the past year, raising concerns about online privacy. In addition, 91% of adults believe they have lost control over how their personal information is collected and used.

Internet security and anonymity

Internet security and anonymity is not just about keeping strangers from accessing our love letters, intimate photos, or online purchases. It’s also about the kind of society we want to live in and how companies will be able to influence the world around us. With unlimited access to data about society, it is easier to manipulate it. In addition, the amount of information that is increasingly coming out about leaks of our private information or the fraudulent practices of large corporations is not encouraging.

The Internet is not a place where you are anonymous

When you surf the Internet, you may feel like you are alone. In reality, however, everything you do, browse, click, search, and view is visible to others and is being “recorded. The websites you visit store detailed information about each user. Internet providers monitor and record the logs of all their customers. Even browser plug-ins or operating systems collect and share information about your daily habits.

The easiest and most accurate way to identify a specific person on the network is to track their IP address. Every device connected to the network receives this unique address when it connects to the Internet. Another method is the unique “fingerprint” of the browser. This is a more complex but equally creepy technique for tracking people. It uses a variety of data, such as screen resolution, language, browser, time zone, plug-ins, and hundreds of other pieces of information that the browser willingly shares with every website it visits.

Data breaches

When I looked at the report on the Privacy Rights website, I found that the list of data breaches in the United States alone reaches almost 20,000 items (at the time of writing this article). The list includes a wide variety of data and a wealth of information on millions of people. In addition, Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that by 2021, companies will fall victim to a ransomware attack every 11 seconds.

On the Wikipedia page, we can find an abbreviated list of some of the biggest personal data leaks involving services or companies that most of us use.

Update 2024

In 2024, ransomware attacks will continue to grow globally, affecting many industries and regions. The United States saw a 63% increase in ransomware incidents, while the United Kingdom saw an even larger 67% increase and France saw a 74% increase. In addition, hackers are using faster and more sophisticated tactics. One example is the “living off the land” technique, which does not require the attacker to install code or scripts in our operating system. Instead, the attacker uses the tools we have installed on our computers by default, such as PowerShell, Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), or the password recovery tool, to launch the attack.

Why privacy matters

What this boils down to is that the more knowledge and information someone has about us, the more power they can have over us. The data we work with on a daily basis is not only used to make very important life decisions, but can also be used to influence those decisions and our behavior. It can also be used to damage our reputations and exert control over us. In the wrong hands, it can be used to intentionally cause harm.

Privacy is not a privilege, but an inalienable right. Respect for another person requires respect for his or her privacy.

Losing control over our private information is, in a sense, losing control over our own lives and their dignity. If we have a legitimate desire to keep something private, it should not be ignored.

Among other things, privacy allows us to manage our reputation and how we are judged by others. It affects our professional and personal lives and helps protect us from false and mistaken judgments. Knowing the details of our lives, especially the small ones, can lead to hasty, erroneous judgments and analyses.

There are many reasons why disclosing confidential information can hurt us. Things like:

• Medical Records – Data about medical conditions, diagnoses, treatments, and past and present health problems can be used to discriminate in jobs, insurance, or other services. Such information is also highly sensitive in private.
• Court records – Court judgments, divorce cases, documents related to legal proceedings or criminal cases can be embarrassing, especially if they relate to private or professional problems.
• Financial records – Financial history, including debts, loans, tax records, can lead to fraud, such as identity theft, and can also be used by cybercriminals to extort money.
• Bank statements – Information about our financial transactions, regular expenses, and transfers can reveal our lifestyle, where we have been, or our financial habits. This type of information is also often the target of cyber attacks.
• Credit card numbers – Theft of credit card numbers and payment information can lead to financial fraud, theft of funds from accounts, and unauthorized transactions.
• Psychological tests – the results of psychological and emotional tests can reveal information about our mental health, personality, and emotional state, which in the wrong hands can lead to discrimination or other abuse.
• Conversations with other people – Private correspondence, text messages, e-mails or other forms of communication may contain confidential data, personal secrets or opinions that, if disclosed, could expose us to reputational or other harm.
• Private photos – Private photos, especially those of an intimate or private nature, can be used for reputational purposes, including revenge porn or blackmail.
• Websites visited online – browsing history, including websites visited and search terms used, can reveal our interests, habits and even sensitive aspects of our lives, such as health problems or personal preferences, which in the wrong hands can be used against us.
• Login information – passwords, user names and security questions are critical to protecting our online accounts. Disclosing this information can lead to account takeover, identity theft, and other sensitive data leaks.
• Home and Work Addresses – Information about your current home and work locations can lead to risks such as theft, stalking, and work-related abuse.
• Geolocation – Data about the places we visit can reveal our daily habits and even our schedules, exposing us to physical danger or cyberstalking.
• Online communications-email history, chat rooms, and other forms of online correspondence can contain sensitive personal and professional information that could be used against us if leaked.
• Media files – Videos, voice memos, documents or photos stored in the cloud can contain both personal and professional information, and their disclosure can have serious privacy and reputational consequences.
• Online shopping history – Information about what we buy online can reveal our interests, preferences, and even health issues. This can be used in marketing campaigns or for fraudulent purposes.
• Biometric information – fingerprints, facial or retinal scans, which are increasingly used for authentication – can be stolen and used for illegal activities, especially since such data is harder to change than passwords.

It’s very inconvenient, especially when we do various, perhaps even morally questionable things in our youth that we come to regret over time. Or we send photos of ourselves to someone close to us and then they end up in the hands of people we work with because someone hacked into our Messenger.

By maintaining the right to confidentiality, we can protect ourselves from lies and have a substitute of control over what we want the outside world to know about us.

Violating privacy boundaries can lead to awkward social situations and damage our relationships with other people. Some of us may have views that are different from others and want to keep them to ourselves. We don’t want them to affect our family, our friends, or our perceptions at work.

In addition, our personal information is critical to our entire lives. It is used to get a loan, buy an apartment, get a driver’s license, get a job, make an investment, or buy an airline ticket, which determines whether we are allowed to fly or even if we are searched at the airport.

It even affects what content we see on the Internet and what search results we see on Google, Bing or Yahoo. What we read or watch has a huge impact on our perception of the world, and the influence on the content we see can prevent us from exploring information outside the mainstream presented to us.

Data left behind on the Internet

The Internet is full of dangers. For example, our information could fall into the wrong hands, or someone could use it to impersonate us.

It is important to remember that it is extremely difficult and unfortunately (if not impossible) to be completely anonymous and secure.

In addition to large corporations and hackers, our private data, conversations, and actions are of interest to some national intelligence agencies who, like the NSA, can intercept and manipulate traffic across the Internet.

As the data shows, since 2001, the U.S. government, with the help of telecommunications companies, has engaged in massive and illegal surveillance of the domestic communications and call records of millions of Americans. I recommend the movie “Snowden“, which tells this story in an accessible way.

Agencies can very likely collect basic information on all Internet users. On the other hand, it is practically impossible to store all this data for a long time, so if they have to work on something, it is certainly based on specific criteria. Such surveillance is highly visible in China and the United States, and has unfortunately become commonplace.

Data collection can be used, for example, to counter prohibited activities, but it can also be used to collect, catalog, and monitor specific groups, such as religious views, political views, social circles, and so on.

How to be anonymous on the Internet

Say you’re a journalist working on an article or doing something that might get someone’s attention. Or maybe you’re just a car enthusiast who accidentally goes online to find some information and ends up in the wrong place. In doing so, you inadvertently share information that can help track your further online activities or fully identify you.

Some time ago, I successfully tried to block the possibility of tracking my activities (unless I’m intentionally sharing something on social media), and today I want to talk about how to easily turn on my “almost” anonymity.

Use private mode

When you visit a website, you leave a trace of yourself in the form of your IP address and cookies. These files are stored on your local computer. Depending on how many websites you visit, they can store small or large amounts of data. This allows websites to deliver information and content tailored to your needs.n about my “almost” anonymity.

If you are signed in to your Gmail or Facebook account, a site that uses Google Analytics or Facebook Pixel may collect additional information about you. Enabling private mode allows you to “start over” every time you turn it on. This is the first and easiest thing you can do to make your web browsing a little more anonymous. All temporary files, cached data, cookies, etc. will be deleted when you exit this mode, and you will be logged out when you exit. Of course, using private mode while logged into a Google Account, using Chroma, or having the same IP address won’t do much good. This is mainly because Google already knew your IP address and still knows who you are, and when you are logged into a Google account, all of our information is still being served up on a platter.

You’ve probably noticed Facebook showing you an ad for a new laptop that you searched for on Google the day before, or YouTube knowing that you watched videos about a new phone. These cookies can be used to create a unique fingerprint based on data collected by your browser.

Browsing and searching for information in private mode largely avoids this. All modern browsers have a private browsing feature, even on mobile phones. Of course, ISPs can still track all browsing activity, but the data on our local machine will be much safer.

Stop using Google, Yahoo and Bing

Google, Bing, and Yahoo are the most popular search engines on the Internet. They collect vast amounts of information about their users for service and personalization purposes, especially when we are logged into our account on these portals. Based on this, Google and Bing may collect important data such as device location, device information, IP address, and cookie data. To avoid tracking while searching, I highly recommend using DuckDuckGo, and if you are interested in privacy issues, their blog “Spread Privacy“.

DuckDuckGo is an independent search engine that does not store search results or personal information about its users. It doesn’t offer personalized results like Google, and everyone who searches sees the same results. It also ensures that you won’t be targeted with ads.

In the extreme case that you can’t switch to another search engine, sign in to your Google account, click on the “Data and personalization” option, and turn off ad personalization, YouTube history, and location storage. If you dig deeper into your account, you’ll also find your search history, visited sites and phone information, as well as brands that track your activity in your Google Account (you can block them one at a time).

Update 2024

In 2024, we have access to even more tools to protect our privacy while browsing the Internet. Increasing privacy awareness among users and advances in technology are leading to the emergence of more alternative search engines that do not track our online activities. In addition to DuckDuckGo, more and more people are turning to other solutions that provide anonymity and non-personalized search results.

One of the new standout tools is Kagi Search, a search engine that places a strong emphasis on protecting users’ privacy while offering a high level of results without unnecessary advertising and tracking. Kagi operates on a subscription model, which means that instead of collecting data for advertising purposes, we have to pay for the service. In return, we get search results,m which are neutral and independent of user profiling.

In addition, other search engines such as Startpage, Qwant, and Brave Search continue to develop their platforms, offering users increasingly better tools for anonymous information retrieval.

Stop using certain tools

Gmail can read every email we send and receive. Google’s Office apps and rival Office 365 can scan everything we write. Dropbox, on the other hand, opens and analyzes what you send. All three of the companies mentioned above (among many others, e.g., Facebook, Yahoo, YouTube, Skype, AOL) have collaborated in mass surveillance and human surveillance programs, according to documents revealed by Snowden.

I recommend that you familiarize yourself with the term PRISM. At the request of the NSA, the Internet companies undertook to provide data contained in electronic mail (e-mail), all data stored on the disks of Internet service providers (including photos and video), data transmitted in the form of file transfers, so-called “Internet telephony” (VoIP), video conferencing, chat rooms (including voice and video), and data collected through social networks. Internet telephony (VoIP), video conferencing, chat rooms (including voice and video), data collected by social networking sites, and logins. The data revealed by Edward Snowden also shows that U.S. services eavesdropped on the phone calls of many German politicians. The disclosure of these documents came as a shock and led to a crisis in German-American relations.

Hide your IP and location

Another important and easy thing you can do is to hide your IP address. If someone has access to it, they can easily determine the geographic location of the server serving that address and get a rough idea of where you are.

I remember when we were developing the application, we used databases of IP addresses that allowed us to locate the user on practically any street.

VPN

One way to hide your IP address is to use a virtual private network (VPN). A VPN is an encrypted network that “tunnels” your connection to the sites you use, thus “masking” your real location.

To do this, if you don’t already use one, you can switch to the Opera browser (it’s a kind of Chromium without the tracking elements) (edit: not recommended due to the growing controversy over the Chinese takeover), Firefox, or Brave for free, and use their built-in VPN mechanisms (though again, I’d be cautious about the information I’m looking for at the time).

Back on topic, I personally recommend using dedicated VPN solution providers (just don’t use the ones from Google!). You can find their comparison here, for example. Personally, I use ProtonVPN (use my link to get 1 month of the premium version for free), which not only masks traffic, but also automatically blocks tracking scripts, ads, and servers with malware.

It also protects DNS queries by routing them through an encrypted tunnel and bypassing third-party providers, preventing network activity from being exposed through query leaks. DNS, or Domain Name System, is what makes browsing the Internet so easy. Its job is to translate the names of the sites you type into your browser into IP addresses. In other words, DNS translates long, complicated web server names into human language, and vice versa. So you can type trojanczyk.pl into your browser instead of 95.216.2.43. As an interesting side note, I would like to mention that Google also promotes its own DNS servers as fast and reliable, which we can’t disagree with. But before we use them, we should ask ourselves why they do it, and whether we really want to share everything we don’t even search for on Google, but get from another source.

Modern VPN service providers allow you to choose a server anywhere in the world. This way you can pretend to be in Lithuania, Estonia or Canada. Another advantage is that you can also use services that are not available in our country (due to their geolocation blocking, such as Netflix in the past, and now Disney+ and HBO Max). In addition, you can tunnel your connections through multiple VPN servers at the same time, which makes it even more difficult to analyze your data and where you are.

It is also worth installing this service on the mobile phones we use.

TOR

You can also use the TOR network (The Onion Router – a network of virtual tunnels) to browse the Internet anonymously. This network prevents network traffic analysis, allowing users to access Internet resources almost anonymously. Browsing the Internet with TOR active is similar to using hundreds of different proxies simultaneously, which are randomized periodically. It is completely free and very easy to use. TOR uses cryptography, a multi-layered encryption of transmitted messages, to ensure the confidentiality of data transmission.

To enjoy the benefits of this network, you can use the TOR web browser or switch to the modern Brave browser (Chrome, without tracking scripts), which includes support for the TOR network.

Interestingly, the TOR network is a network that provides access to the Dark Net (part of the Deep Web) and its resources. This is a deliberately hidden part of the Internet’s resources that can only be accessed with special software (such as the browser mentioned above). But I will write about that at another time. And as soon as you connect to this network, you can take a look at the wiki hidden from the world (without the TOR network you won’t see anything).

Change your email provider

I don’t know if you still use mail on Onet, Interia, O2 or Wp. Maybe you use Gmail or Yahoo, but if you do, I strongly recommend switching to a more secure solution. Use an email service that offers encryption options for your correspondence by default and prevents third party access. These include Tutanota, ProtonMail, MailFence, or SecMail. Personally, I like using ProtonMail and the additional services they offer. Among them are the encrypted calendar, contacts or their secure cloud drive, which completely encrypts the data it contains (a replacement for Google Drive, OneDrive or Dropbox). In addition, there are no ads or unwanted emails, and it is mathematically impossible for others to forward or read your emails.

Change your instant messenger to Signal

Using proxies, VPNs, and TOR hides your real IP address from outside eyes, but using instant messaging is a different story. Messenger, Hangouts, Skype and Teams do not provide full security for the messages you send. Remember, companies can share your conversations with various agencies and governments. That’s why you should switch to Signal Messenger, a best-in-class app for sending encrypted messages, including voice calls. It’s no different from other apps of its kind, but it has a real encryption engine tucked inside. It even has full E2EE encryption for group video calls. According to the Niebezpiecznik.pl website:

Signal – is the most secure messenger. Its source code (both server and client) is open, which means that anyone can analyze it for backdoors and (in)correct use of cryptography. What further distinguishes Signal from the rest of the instant messengers is its almost paranoid concern for user privacy – Signal’s servers collect the minimum amount of information necessary to provide the service. The developers don’t have access to the contacts the user has on the phone and the metadata of the conversation, which in simple terms means that they don’t know not only what user A is talking to user B about, but that user A is talking to user B at all.

Not surprisingly, it is used by politicians to send top secret messages to each other.

A detailed comparison of various instant messengers, not just Signal, WhatsApp or Telegram, can be found here in the form of a table.

It is also worth mentioning that WhatsApp has updated its privacy policy as of 08/01/2021 and will officially transfer data to Facebook.

When the European Union approved Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp in 2014, Facebook provided documentation showing that it would not be able to match FB users with WhatsApp users by phone number. Two years later, however, it turned out that it could, and the European Commission fined Facebook 110 million euros. Unfortunately, that didn’t help much. So switch to Signal as soon as possible. Even Elon Musk himself encouraged this on the day he announced the change in WhatsApp’s privacy policy.

Update 2024

In 2024, a growing number of popular remote work and communication tools, such as Slack, Google, Microsoft, and Zoom, use artificial intelligence (AI) technology to improve functionality, personalize the user experience, and increase efficiency. Unfortunately, the processing of data by these tools has raised a number of controversies, particularly in the context of user privacy.

Slack

Slack, the most popular collaborative communication platform, has introduced AI-based tools such as automated reply prompts, message content analysis, and discussion organization. The company also acknowledges that user data, including private messages, can be used to train AI models. To disable this option, organization administrators have the ability to manually opt their organization out of this functionality. To do so, they must contact support.

Google Workspace

Google uses user data to train its Gemini artificial intelligence. This has received a lot of criticism due to the lack of clear information on the subject, and especially because it is simply turned on by default for everyone. Unfortunately, Google does not give you the option to completely opt out of this functionality. If you use their tools, it’s worth considering a migration. Your company’s data won’t be completely private there either.

Microsoft.

Microsoft is building AI into tools like Teams, Word, and Excel, and soon it will be built into the operating system. In Microsoft’s tools, administrators and users can limit some AI capabilities and manage their privacy settings through the Microsoft Privacy Dashboard. Unfortunately, it is not possible to completely disable AI processing without limiting the basic functionality of the tools.

General steps to protect your privacy in AI tools in 2024

In 2024, protecting users’ privacy faces another difficult challenge – ubiquitous artificial intelligence. While companies offer some control mechanisms, they are not always enough to completely opt out of data processing by algorithms. Therefore, remember to

• Check the privacy policies of the applications you use regularly,
• Manage your privacy settings
• turn off personalization,
• Find alternative tools if necessary.

Change browser

Chrome now handles more than 60% of all web traffic (update 2024: 64.73%), which is very bad because Google uses Chrome as a kind of window through which it peers at your every action on the web. If you don’t change your privacy settings on Google, Chrome will also store every website you visit. To make matters worse, Chrome does virtually nothing to block third-party tracking scripts or fingerprint your device. According to an article in the Washington Post, Chrome collects an average of about 11,000 “trackers” every week. Basically, you have to ask yourself, do you want 11,000 pairs of eyes watching what you do and see online?

For better anonymity, you should switch to the Brave, Bromite or Firefox browsers, and use DuckDuckGo on your cell phone (it has the same name as their search engine; it’s available in both Android or iOS versions).

The Brave browser is built on top of Chromium (the open source software behind the Chrome browser), so Chrome users won’t have any problems making the switch. Unlike Google’s Chrome, Brave does not collect any data about our activities. Our data remains private and resides only on our device. Brave also blocks tracking scripts, all third-party cookies, and advertising cookies by default. In addition, built-in HTTPS Everywhere ensures that all connections are securely encrypted. Brave also includes browser fingerprint protection.

Install additional tracking scripts and ad blockers

I also strongly recommend installing an ad- and script-blocking add-on to your browser, such as uBlock Origin (so effective that in 2024 Chrome already prevents its installation, but fortunately other browsers offer this option as well). After installing it, it is worth visiting the Polish Filters page, where we can find additional blocking rules, such as:

• outdoor advertising,
• affiliate links,
• widgets,
• pop-ups,
• sMS scams,
• scams,
• tracking scripts,
• information collectors,
• anti-adblocking scripts,
• unnecessary, disruptive and potentially dangerous elements,
• sponsored articles,
• known mobile ad networks,
• cryptocurrency mining scripts,
• scripts that cause increased CPU usage and slow down your computer,
• and much more.

All of this will definitely improve your security. Other than that, you should definitely use Privacy Badger or the app (not to be confused with the search engine of the same name) provided by Duck Duck Go.

To see what information is collected by some websites and what you should protect yourself from, you can take a look at the Terms of Service; Didn’t Read.

Avoid leaving your browser fingerprints

Browser fingerprinting is a method that relies on activity matching to identify individual users.

This method can be used to track a specific person online. Even using a VPN may not help much in this case. It’s a bit like taking a fingerprint from an object we touch. At first, you don’t know who the fingerprint belongs to, but all you have to do is compare it to a database of fingerprints to find the owner. That’s exactly what happens on the Internet: the browser’s fingerprints are cataloged and collected in bulk so that they can be analyzed to reveal the person’s identity.

To avoid leaving your browser’s fingerprints, first switch to Firefox or Brave and install the Privacy Badger add-on I mentioned earlier.

To test if your browser is secure, you can use Cover Your Tracks or AmIUnique.

Keep track of your passwords and use a password manager

It is very dangerous to use the same password for all the sites we use. We should make sure that the passwords we use are unique for each service we log in to and contain about 16-20 characters, including upper and lower case letters and special characters. This way, if one of them is compromised, it will be impossible to log in and take over our identity.

Due to the fact that each person has an average of 70-80 passwords, it is impossible to remember them all. As a result, many of us reuse the same old passwords or rely on passwords that are easy to remember but equally easy to guess.

A password manager allows you to generate unique passwords for each service, encrypt them, and then make them all available under one master password. You can use ProtonPass, LastPass or RoboForm. You can find a comparison of them here.

Change the privacy settings in your operating system

The operating system on your computer literally sees and knows everything. For example, when an application wants to read something from your local hard drive, communicate with the world, connect to the Internet, display something, or ask you a question, it does so through the operating system. As a result, this system is able to analyze what you are doing, and it must do so in order for the action you want to perform to be realized. To ensure the basic security of your computer, you should always keep your operating system and installed applications up to date. You should install an antivirus program, turn on your firewall (a way to protect your network and systems from intruders), cover the camera you use, and enable disk encryption (Windows, MacOs, Linux). It’s also worth taking care of additional settings related to our privacy and what our system can share with the outside world (with our permission).

Windows 10 and 11

In Windows, press the Start menu and type “Privacy Settings”.

In the general settings, disable all possible options, such as

• Allow websites to deliver location-aware content,
• Use of advertising content identifiers.
• Launch tracking applications.
• suggesting content.

Also, turn off personalization settings for handwriting, speech, and action history, and in the Diagnostics tab, do not allow the transmission of optional diagnostic data and customized environment.

It’s also a good idea to check all other privacy settings in Windows to see which applications have access to our location (best to turn this off altogether), camera, and microphone.

Update 2024

Since writing this article, I have also started using other tools to improve privacy on Microsoft systems. One of the tools I recommend is WPD Privacy, an application for Windows that allows detailed control over privacy settings, firewalls, and bloatware.

WPD Privacy allows you to

• Customize privacy options by disabling telemetry features and other services that may collect user information.
• Manage firewall settings to block unwanted communication with external servers.
• Remove unnecessary system applications and programs that can access our data.

It is a very intuitive tool that helps you easily configure Windows to maximize your privacy.

MacOs

Apple shot itself in the knee when it was revealed that Siri shared certain small fragments of conversations with third parties. The reason for this action was supposedly an attempt to improve Siri’s service and accuracy. As a precaution, on a Mac, go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Analytics & Enhancements and disable the ability to share data with Apple.

Then go back a little higher and check all privacy settings. Disable the sharing of crash data with developers, as well as diagnostic and usage data. Turn off location and prevent ad scripts from tracking you. In addition, there are many different fields, such as contacts, camera, disk access. Click on each one and check which applications have access to system functions or devices, and revoke the rights of those you’re not sure about or don’t want them to have access to.

Change your phone’s privacy settings

With smartphones, we focus mainly on not losing them, while paying little attention to what we have installed on them and what services we allow to track us. I suggest you take a look here and read Google’s data collection publication.

Unfortunately, it has to be admitted that the use of mobile phones gives us absolutely no privacy. Examples of this include the first off-the-shelf article about how the “Secret Service bought phone location data from apps“, or the one describing that Google ‘s largest smart display, the Nest Hub Max, contains a controversial feature that simply watches what we do. Also worth a look is the Washington Post article, which points out that on the average iPhone, apps using tracking scripts collect and share about 1.5 GB of data every 30 days.

Fortunately, apps like ProtonVPN or Jumbo are able to stop at least some of this tracking. Another thing we can do is change our operating system’s privacy settings.

It is also good too:

• enable screen lock,
• not use off-the-shelf USB chargers, e.g., in special devices or airports,
• keep all apps up to date,
• enter application permissions and track what each application is allowed to do,
• disable location,
• disable Bluetooth – here’s why,
• install VPN (just like on our computers),
• change the default search engine to Duck Duck Go,
• install antivirus,
• use a password manager,
• enable device encryption,
• disable voice assistants and background listening,
• change the messaging app from Messenger and WhatsUp to Signal (this one is the best – see above), Wire or Telegram.

Set up two-factor authentication

All the services you use should have two-step authentication enabled. This requires us to certify each login with a specially generated code, which reduces the risk and makes it virtually impossible to log in even if someone learns our password. You can do this on Facebook, Twitter, ProtonMail, Instagram, Google, Microsoft, and many other platforms.

Use TAILS to leave no trace behind

For example, if you’re a journalist and want to contact your source, or if you’re looking for something secret from the whole world and want to cover your tracks, use TAILS. It’s an operating system that runs from a flash drive and prevents access to your personal data on the operating system, so you can be tracked. Windows and MacOS are particularly bad at storing data that can be used to identify us. Linux is much better at this, as it is easier to separate the system user from the device they are using. For true privacy, TAILS is worth a look. It’s a completely free and secure operating system. All you have to do is run the installer and follow the on-screen instructions. You can read more about how TAILS works and how it encrypts your connection on the official website.

Conclusion

The world as we know it is changing dramatically. So is modern technology and the Internet we use. The web, which was supposed to give us all freedom, is slowly becoming a tool for surveillance of its users. It is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain privacy, even in the privacy of our own homes.

Not surprisingly, even Tim Berners-Lee, the so-called creator of the Internet, is unhappy with the direction the technology is taking. Tim has long warned about the problem of centralization and monopolization of the network. According to him, today’s virtual world is created and controlled by technology giants, and their power over the public is growing by the day. He has even launched a startup with MIT scientists to create a “new Internet” that will restore the balance of power.

The preservation of privacy and anonymity on the Internet is something we should definitely rely on in the coming time.

By the way, if you are interested in security issues, I invite you to download the free book “Understanding Cyber Security“.

Sources:

https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ 
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