Digital Privacy

Social media, email, and web browsers are first-party data collection parties. When you interact with these sites, information about your behavior is stored in the company’s proprietary databases.First-party data collectors can make money selling your data to third-parties. Even if the service is "free," companies profit from your activity on their website and personal information revealed through website interaction.

While using any digital tools comes with some risk to your privacy, using selective privacy tools changing certain settings in online accounts can reduce that risk. Changing your privacy settings in your online accounts affects what information public users see about you, but the given social media company will still have all of the information you share on its platform.

Please note that because digital platforms like social media make profits from the personal information you share, the information that they share about changing privacy settings is helpful, but may not be fully transparent. It's therefore good to view not only what the platforms themselves say about their privacy settings, but also what other sources that are less likely to have a commercial interest in the platform say.

Keep in mind that technology and digital platform are continually changing, and there is no "silver bullet," or full solution to protecting digital privacy. You'll want to continue practice awareness of potential privacy risks and be mindful about what information you share online.

This page includes a non-exhaustive list of ways to better protect your privacy and data while using first-party data collectors like social media, email, and other internet services.

These simple privacy tools offer easy ways to improve your digital privacy when searching and browsing the Internet. If you feel short on time, these are good first steps. (Please note that these are offered as a starting point, not a comprehensive list.)

As mentioned above, please note that because digital platforms like social media make profits from the personal information you share, the information that they share about changing privacy settings is helpful, but may not be fully transparent. It's therefore good to view not only what the platforms themselves say about their privacy settings, but also what other sources that are less likely to have a commercial interest in the platform say.

Google

Facebook

Image Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F_icon.svg

Twitter

Instagram

• Use a unique password for each of your user accounts. 
• Use a combination of letters (upper- and lower-case), numbers, and symbols that are difficult for anyone to guess.
• Password managers can help with juggling between a large number of passwords, though it's important to be aware of their limitations. (Some believe that writing your passwords on paper may be the most secure password management system, despite their limitations.) Cloud-based password managers may be the best option if you use multiple devices. If you only use one device, non-browser password managers like the open source KeePassXC, which store passwords on your device, offer an additional layer of security.

• A Virtual Private Network (VPN) creates a private "tunnel" through the internet. (See this This January 2020 Popular Mechanics article (2020) for a more detailed explanation and for criteria for choosing a VPN.
• Be sure to research a VPN before you decide to use it. The VPN will be able to see your Internet activity, so you want to be sure you trust it.
• VPNs can sometimes break authentication or digital rights management systems, disrupting some library digital resources. If you have a VPN and are having issues accessing library resources, try turning off your VPN.

Image Credit: https://securityboulevard.com/2020/03/vpn-a-key-to-securing-an-online-work-environment/

Encryption technologies use a mathematical formula to scramble information, rendering it unreadable unless you have a key to decrypt the encrypted information. Different forms of encryption are applied to different sorts of data. Text messages, emails, or communications with apps are examples of data in transit, while computer files, external hard drives, and information stored on a cell phone are data at rest. Data in transit requires different encryption strategies than data at rest.

Encryption technologies are a tool in your privacy toolkit, but encryption alone will not solve your privacy issues. Below is a discussion of two different kinds of encryption technologies for data in transit, Tor Browsers and the Signal messaging app. While both technologies are helpful tools with storied advocates, critical questions should be raised about the early research and development of each, particularly for users driven to use Tor and Signal to avoid government surveillance.

Tor Browsers

Image Credit: By The Tor Project, Inc. - https://media.torproject.org/image/official-images/2011-tor-logo-flat.svg, CC BY 3.0 us, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20851621

• How does Tor work?
  • Through "onion routing," messages are encoded in layers of encryption.
  • This Georgetown Technology Review article (2016) succinctly explains onion routers and browser security concerns.
• Advocates of Tor:
  • Edward Snowden, the former military contractor turned NSA whistleblower and privacy advocate
  • The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which has this one-pager on Tor
  • The Library Freedom Project, which uses Tor to help libraries protect library user's online privacy
• Questions about Tor:
  • After a FOIA request, journalist Yasha Levine found that Tor was initially developed and funding by the US government, including the CIA.
  • Ultimately, do these ties matter? Should you worry that actions on Tor will be shared with government agencies? Maybe. It is clear that Tor is comfortable accepting government resources. Tor also shares information with the government before informing Tor users, potentially contradicting Tor's promised transparency.
  • Not all are swayed by Levine's research. Micah Lee, technologist at The Intercept, contends that Levine is being conspiratorial. The Tor website states that the project was initially seeded by military funding, and Levine never identifies an instance of Tor's collusion with the US military. Additionally, Tor advocate EFF notes that Tor is not completely private.

Signal

Image Credit: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/blob/master/Signal/iTunesArtwork%403x.png

• How does it work?:
  • Signal has end-to-end encryption on messages.
  • This ProPrivacy review discusses whether Signal saves metadata on each message.
  • Signal sounds like WhatsApp, so why did people switch from WhatsApp to Signal? The main reasons are security features and open source software. Facebook owns WhatsApp and mines WhatsApp networks for Facebook data.
• Advocates of Signal:
  • Edward Snowden
  • EFF does not necessarily advocate for Signal's privacy record, but does note that Signal has better encryption tactics than WhatApp.
• Questions about Signal:
  • Yasha Levine has also critiqued Signal. Levine's September 2017 article from The Baffler includes an interview with one of the creators of the encrypted messaging app Telegram, pointing to curiosities in Signal's funding (including funding from the Broadcasting Board of Governors) and Snowden's insisted preference for Signal instead of other encryption apps. The article also discusses a CIA leak revealing that the CIA had tools to decrypt Signal, Weibo, and other encrypted SMS apps.