How to Privacy

 Have you ever downloaded a simple calculator app, a flashlight, or a solitaire game, and suddenly it asks for permission to access your Contacts , Location , and Microphone ? You might click "Allow" just to get the app to work. But you should pause. Data is Money Free apps are rarely free. If you aren't paying for the app, the developer is likely making money by selling your data. A flashlight app doesn't need to know you are in a coffee shop in Chicago. But a data broker will pay good money for that information to build a map of where you go, where you shop, and where you sleep. The "Ask App Not to Track" Revolution If you have an iPhone, you’ve seen the pop-up: "Allow app to track your activity across other companies' apps and websites?" Always click "Ask App Not to Track." This blocks the app from accessing your IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers), a unique ID code that advertisers use to follow you around the internet. A Simple 2-M...

 We all love seeing photos of our friends' children. The first day of school, the messy birthday cake face, the bathtub photos. It feels like a digital scrapbook. But in 2025, privacy experts are warning parents about "Sharenting"—oversharing parenting content—and the long-term risks it creates for children who are too young to consent. The Risks You Might Not See 1. Identity Theft Starts Early When you post a "Happy 2nd Birthday!" photo with your child's full name and the location of their preschool, you are handing identity thieves the puzzle pieces they need. Banks and government agencies use names, birth dates, and mother's maiden names as security questions. 2. The "Forever" Digital Footprint Facial recognition technology is now standard. Photos you post today feed into databases that can track your child for the rest of their lives. A cute photo of a tantrum might seem funny now, but could it embarrass them when they apply for a job in ...

 We have all been there. You are at brunch talking to a friend about how you need new hiking boots. You have never searched for them online. You haven't typed it into a text. But two hours later, you open Instagram, and boom: an ad for hiking boots. "My phone is listening to me!" you scream. It is the most common conspiracy theory in tech. But the truth is actually much more interesting—and a little creepier—than a secret microphone recording your chats. No, It’s (Probably) Not the Microphone Tech companies like Google, Meta (Facebook), and Amazon have repeatedly denied recording your conversations for ads. Security researchers have tested this thousands of times. If your phone were constantly sending audio recordings to a server, we would see the battery drain and the massive data usage. We don't. So, How Do They Know? They don't need to listen to you because they are essentially predicting the future . They build a profile of you based on three things: Location ...

 Artificial Intelligence has transformed from a novelty to a utility in 2025. We use it to write emails, plan trips, and generate images. But this convenience comes with a massive, often invisible cost: Data Scraping. The "Black Box" Problem Generative AI models require massive datasets to learn. In the early days, companies scraped the open web indiscriminately—grabbing blog posts, family photos, and public forum comments to train their models. Now, in 2025, we are seeing the fallout. Your data isn't just sitting in a database; it is effectively "baked into" the brain of the AI. You can’t simply ask for it to be deleted because it’s part of the model’s logic. This has led to a surge in privacy lawsuits and a new regulatory focus on Privacy by Design . What is "Privacy by Design"? Privacy by Design (PbD) is the concept that privacy shouldn't be an afterthought or a setting you have to toggle on; it should be the default state of the technology. In ...

 How many times have you clicked "Log in with Google" or "Log in with Facebook" this week? It’s convenient, sure. But every time you do that, you are feeding the silo. You are telling a tech giant exactly what services you use, when you use them, and who you are. You don't own your digital identity; you are renting it from them. Enter Decentralized Identity (DID) —the technology that might finally kill the password and the data silo. What is Decentralized Identity? Imagine a digital wallet on your phone. Inside, you have verified credentials: a digital driver’s license issued by the DMV, a diploma issued by your university, and a proof of employment issued by your boss. When a website needs to verify you are over 21, you don't upload a photo of your ID (which creates a security risk). Instead, your wallet sends a cryptographic "proof" that simply says "Yes, this user is over 21." The Website gets the verification it needs. You keep your...

 If you’re like most people, you’ve spent the last few years dutifully clicking "Reject All" on those annoying cookie banners. You might even use a privacy-focused browser that blocks third-party cookies by default. You feel relatively safe. Unfortunately, the advertising industry is one step ahead. As the "cookie cookie" crumbles, a more insidious tracking method has taken its place: Browser Fingerprinting . What is Browser Fingerprinting? Unlike a cookie, which is a file stored on your device, a fingerprint is a profile constructed from the unique characteristics of your browser and hardware. When you visit a site, it queries your browser for information, including: Screen resolution and color depth Installed fonts Operating system version Battery status Time zone Graphics card renderer (Canvas fingerprinting) Individually, these details seem harmless. But combined, they create a "digital fingerprint" that is accurate enough to identify you across the we...