Take Control of your Data!

‘Take Control of your Data‘ is the theme for this ‘Data Privacy Day 2025’ (according to National Cybersecurity Alliance)which falls on January 28, 2025(today!) This is also ‘Data Privacy Week’ which draws attention to privacy measures that are needed in this ever burgeoning digital world.

What is ‘Privacy’?

To begin with, let’s begin with ‘What is meant by Privacy?’ Privacy is the “right to be let alone”. Describing it further, it is the right to be not tracked under any circumstances or minimally as and when the situation demands it(as an example, ride sharing apps might need your location to send a cab. In such a case, it is good to turn the location ‘on’ and turn it off after the ride is over)

This is the age of excessive sharing. We have found amazing digital ways by means of which we can share our happiness, our achievements, our rants, our reviews, our anger and more.

In all this sharing, we forget that there are many digital features that surreptitiously seek to record our sensitive information. There are features in all sites today, that record sensitive data about us like our name, our age, our phone number, our social media handles, our shopping likes, the steps we take, our health, our location and a lot more information about us. This information might not even be stored on one site but it might be shared across other sites as well(OMG!)

As an example,

“Jayanthi Manikandan living in _____ aged about ____ years likes to shop at ____ for ____, ____, and ____. She likes to order food from ____. She likes to read about ____ and these are her interests_____. She liked ______post on Facebook, commented on _____ LinkedIn post and reshared ______a ‘X’ post. She travelled from _____ to ____ on ____date. “

Isn’t this a lot of personal information that is known about me?

I would rather a site knows very little about me rather than know everything about me! I personally do not like sites telling me

“You visit this site often”

or

“You ordered this dish twice before”

or

“You bought this items 2 times before” (face palm!)

So, how do I take control of my data to improve my privacy comfort?

Being a InfoSec geek and privacy warrior, “privacy” is always stitched to the back of my mind.

1. Awareness is the first thought that has to be taken by all in this digital age. Who is gathering your data and what information are sites storing about you? It is a good idea for all digital citizens to be aware of these things. As an example, when you download apps from Google Play Store or Apple’s AppStore, you can see information about what information the app gathers about you, whom it is shared with and how you can have your data deleted from their site(yes, you can do that as well) This is an example:
2. Next, it is good to manage all privacy settings and revoke all unnecessary accesses to the numerous apps. It might be time consuming initially, but it is good to do it for your privacy comfort. As an example, it is not necessary for health apps to know your contacts or have access to your pictures or videos. In this case, you do have to keenly observe the apps and see the accesses of each app and revoke unnecessary accesses.
3. Apps only need the barest of privacy permission to function with. It is not necessary for them to collect unnecessary data about you.
4. Uninstall all unwanted apps that they might be collecting unnecessary data
5. It is also good to read the smallest wording on a website about their privacy policies and whom they share your information with.
6. Do not feel shy to read the information that is written on sites with regard to your information. Click to read them and empower yourself with privacy knowledge to make better choices.

In most of the cases, “Strictly necessary cookies” will be more than enough to browse the web.

This ‘Data Privacy Day’ and week these are some other tips to have maximum privacy on your devices:

1. Share only what is needed for you and for your occupation on the web
2. Try to browse the web with privacy focused browsers and privacy based search engines. This list will keep updating, so you will have to keep abreast with the latest in the world of privacy based browsers and search engines and upgrade to the best in the market.
3. Try to always keep “security and privacy” thoughts at the back of your mind as you browse the web
4. If you are uncomfortable with data collection, you can have your data deleted at any point of time from any app(though it will take time to do it)
5. I would prefer extra care with health apps that track feminine data and other extremely personal health information
6. Read more on the net and my blog 🙂 and empower yourself with information to make smarter digital choices.

As the digital era grows, privacy becomes more important than ever. Privacy concepts and laws go hand in hand and new laws are being enacted all over the world(in India as well, the DPDP Act – will write about it soon!) to safeguard the processing of personal data. New laws are being enacted to make privacy terms and conditions transparent for all.

Happy ‘Data Privacy Day’ and stay safe online always!