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They are probably right. However, if you are one of the few to want to protect the confidentiality of personal data, here is an incomplete list of smart steps you can take to protect your data:
iPhone
Apple is the most privacy-focused company. Yet each iPhone is a reference device. Its location function is essential for accurate GPS navigation and weather reporting. But it also means that others could watch your movements.
Apple only records a few months of location data and stores it on your phone, not on Apple computers. You can erase this information whenever you want. But other iPhone apps can also track your location. This makes sense for a local news app, but not so much for a game. The gaming company may try to sell your location data to a third party.
In the iPhone Settings menu, under the Privacy tab, select Location Services, which lists all the apps that transmit your location. The settings indicate whether the application is following you continuously or only when it is being used. For each application, you can enable or disable access to the place. Tell this video game app that she does not need to know where you are.
At the bottom of the menu is another option, System Services. You will find important places, a trace of your recent movements that you can choose to keep or delete.
Android
As with the iPhone, tracking Android's position allows app makers to monitor your moves. Android's tools for dealing with this problem are not as accurate as those of Apple. Nevertheless, you can enable or disable the location service for each application.
If you have an Android for five years, for example, Google knows all the changes you made during that period. Fortunately, Google allows you to delete this data. In Google Maps, select Settings and then Map History. You can order Google to erase your card records and even tell it to completely stop the data logging.
You also need to lock your phone's contact list to prevent its applications from learning too much about your friends and colleagues. So go back to Settings and Applications and check the list of permissions for applications with access to your contacts. A similar feature on the iPhone's privacy page shows that only two apps on my iPhone want access to my contacts. On my Android phone, I found and stopped several apps of this type.
For more Android privacy tools, launch a different product from the owner of Android, Alphabet.
Google Dashboard
In Dashboard, you'll find privacy controls that let you manage your Android phone, Google Internet searches, Google Maps location data, and virtually any other interaction with an Alphabet product.
You'll find a history of all the videos you've watched on YouTube, such as photos you've taken with your Android's camera, as well as voice command records in Google Assistant.
Google uses all of this to improve its services and to target you with more relevant ads. You can download a backup copy of this data for your records. Then you can delete all or part.
You may want Google to monitor all your movements, but you do not want it to record your searches on the Internet. Google Dashboard allows you to choose.
Google has just added a feature that automatically removes your Google searches, Google Maps location data and information about the apps you use, after three months or 18 months. It's a pragmatic approach that makes it easier to keep our data under control.
Chromium
Yes, it's another Alphabet product – this time, the most popular web browser in the world. And every time you start it, you may be sending a lot of sensitive information to Google. Chrome syncs all devices on which you use the browser. This gives users access to saved bookmarks and passwords regardless of the access mode. Sync also shares your personal data with Google cloud computers.
If you prefer privacy to convenience, go to your Chrome browser and turn off the automatic sync setting.
Google also said that it would make it easier to identify and block tracking cookies used by companies to monitor the sites you visit. If you do not want to wait for Google, consider using the free Ghostery browser application, which can automatically block these cookies.
Alexa
Amazon's popular voice control system is now integrated with dozens of popular digital products – each capturing speech clips from families and sharing them with the online sales giant.
Alexa is supposed to record only when a user says the waking word, but sometimes he hears a little too much.
The Alexa app has a command to view all your Alexa records stored. For more privacy, delete them.
But on Thursday, the CNET news site announced that Amazon is deleting audio from your Alexa records, but retains a textual transcript. The company said it was also working on a way to delete the transcripts.
Alexa also allows you to set a voice code, similar to the PIN code on your ATM card, so your children do not order 100 cases of Oreo cookies without you knowing.
You can also completely block Alexa's purchase function.
Do not forget that there are many voice-controlled third-party Alexa applications, called "skills," that can collect sensitive data. The Alexa application has a configuration screen to monitor them.
Make sure your Facebook posts can only be seen by online friends, not all Facebook users.
Also make sure your list of Facebook friends online is not visible to strangers walking on your page.
For your Facebook profile, limit the details that others can see. For example, share your date of birth only with friends on Facebook, not with strangers. You can delete some details completely. And you can prevent your Facebook page from appearing in a Google search, which will make your search a bit more difficult.
Do you use your Facebook password to connect to other websites? If that's the case, you share too much information with Facebook. Start connecting with a nice, neutral email address.
You can also prevent Facebook from using facial recognition software to identify you in other people's photos or prevent the company from displaying your name in ads for products you've "liked" with a click of the mouse .
Of course, the easiest way to protect your privacy on Facebook is to be very selective about what you publish there, or not to use it at all. But we all know that it will not happen. So you should go to the Facebook Privacy Page and start clicking.
Hiawatha Bray can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeTechLab.
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