Protect Your Privacy

In today’s world, we all need to take steps to protect our privacy.

A song that was popular when I was in high school was “I Always Feel Like Somebody’s Watching Me”.  At that time, society would call a person who agreed with these lyrics paranoid. But now, that is no longer true.

Technology has eliminated our privacy.  Anyone with a smartphone can record anything you do in public.  (See this funny video for an example of this.)  And, what you do in the privacy of your own home is no longer private, either.

Unless you take precautions to prevent this, someone can record every keystroke you make on the internet.  And the results of your keystrokes can be used to market products to you or steal your identity.  During the most recent US election, a British company collected data from 50 million Facebook users without their permission.  (This data compromise caused the DOW Jones to drop significantly March 19, 2018.)

Did you know that your television can also be sending information about you to an unknown source?

What can you do in this day and age to protect your privacy?

To protect your privacy…

• In general…

Watch what you do and say in public.  Never say anything that you want kept private, because you never know when someone might have a voice or video recorder turned on.

Also, be cautious when you contact a company for any reason. Before you give any of your information, be sure to ask if this company sells or distributes clients’ or customers’ information.  If the answer is yes, ask for clarification of their privacy policy (to whom they release information).  You can always opt out if you do not agree with it.

• On the internet…

On the internet, use a Virtual Private Network every time you log on to keep every keystroke you make private.  The one I prefer is Nord VPN.  It only costs less than $4 a month and protects up to 6 devices.

If you are like me and absolutely must keep your address and contact information off the internet, you might want to consider using an online privacy service like Abine. This type of company routinely monitors the internet for any information that you do not want to be publicly available and removes it.  I have been using Abine for five years and have been happy with this company, but there are other companies that do the same thing.  Just google “online privacy service” and you will find other companies.

• With your Smart TV…

Turn off the Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) in your smart television.  If you do not know how to do this, go to youtube.com in your computer and type the brand and model of your television as well as “turn off ACR”.  You will find step by step visual instructions to enable you to do this.

• In your smartphone…

In your smartphone or iPhone, there are several things you can do to guard your privacy.  Find the Application Manager and select your apps one by one. When you select an app, click on permissions and switch them off by unchecking them if you do not agree with them.  When you install a new app, make sure you read every screen and uncheck any privacy setting you disagree with. If you install the Facebook app, turn off access to your phone’s calendar, contacts, microphone, and location data.  Giving this app access to your camera if you want to post pictures you take only compromises your stored photos, so you should do this if you want to.

Because my life could be on the line if my abusive and angry ex-husband found me, I protect my privacy.  If you have your own reasons to guard your privacy, these tips will help.

Remember that someone is always watching you unless you take precautions!

 

Let the encouraging words in these bobbiejrae posts help you

soar like an eagle above life’s storms.

 

Your computer deserves protection!

Would you like some tips to shop online?

Make sure you are working with an honest company!

Make sure that identity thieves have not compromised your credit…

 

Enjoy BJ’s encouraging words

on bobbiejrae.com.

BJ’s encouraging books are available

on Amazon.com

and Barnesandnoble.com.

Buy BJ’s books

for people

you care about today!