Privacy vs. Convenience
Whenever you sign up for or even just use a service online, all kinds of data is being gathered about you. It is important to make an informed decision on if a given service is worth it for you or not. The following steps are a good start to decide if you actually want a company to have your data.
- Is the service, app, or game worth the amount or type of personal data they want in return?
- Can you control your data privacy and still use the service?
- Is the data requested even relevant for the app or service (that is, "why does a Solitaire game need to know all my contacts")?
- If you haven't used an app, service, or account in several months, is it worth keeping around knowing that it might be collecting and sharing your data?
Does this app need to know your location?
When giving permissions to an app be sure to check that it has the lowest permissions necessary to function as you need. Solitaire does not and should not need your location or contacts. Privacy settings can generally be adjusted app by app or at a system wide level. Go to https://staysafeonline.org/ to find out more about managing your privacy settings.
Protect Your Data
Security of your information is crucial to the privacy of it as well. It is important to follow some cybersecurity practices to keep this data secure.
- Create long (at least 12 characters), unique passwords for each account and device. Use a password manager to store each password – maintaining dozens of passwords securely is now easier than ever.
- Turn on multifactor authentication (MFA) wherever it is permitted – this keeps your data safe even if your password is compromised.
- Turn on automatic device, software, and browser updates, or make sure you install updates as soon as they are available.
- Learn how to identify phishing messages, which can be sent as emails, texts, or direct messages.