Take back control of your data from web giants

. . . because ratings firms trawl your profiles to see if you can afford payments

SO HOW do you take back control of your data from the shops, banks, insurers and technology giants that want to exploit it? There are all sorts of tricks you can use to stay one step ahead, from securing your email account to smarter web browsing. Here, MATT OLIVER reveals the nuts and bolts of protecting your privacy...

STOP FIRMS TRACKING YOUR EMAILS

You may not realise, but people who send you emails are capable of tracking them to see whether or not you have opened their messages.

This isn’t by using a ‘read receipt’, which asks if you want to tell someone you’ve read their message. Instead, the way many senders track you, without you knowing, is by using pictures.

When some companies send you emails, inside they include a tiny, transparent picture sometimes the size of just one computer pixel. These send a notification to the company when your computer loads them.

It is possible to stop this by preventing your computer from loading the images. But remember, this will also mean your device won’t load images in the email you might want to see. Attachments are separate and are not affected.

If you are using Microsoft outlook, to change your settings click ‘File’ in the top left corner. This will open the options box. In the left-hand column, click ‘Trust centre’.

Next, click the ‘Trust centre settings’ button, which should appear on the right.

This will open another box. on the lefthand side, click the tab that says ‘Automatic download’. Then uncheck the box next to the words ‘Don’t download pictures...’ Click the ‘oK’ button at the bottom of the box.

To stop images loading on Gmail, open the website and log in. Click the button with the cogs on it, located in the screen’s top-right corner.

Next, click ‘ Settings’ in the drop- down menu. In this page, the fourth set of options has a box next to the words ‘ Ask before displaying external images’. Click that.

You can carry out a similar process on Yahoo mail. open your account and click the cog symbol in the top right. on the drop-down menu, click ‘Settings’. Next, click the ‘Security’ tab and, once there, uncheck the box next to the words ‘Show images in emails’.

Then, click ‘ Never by default’, before clicking ‘ Save’ at the bottom of the screen.

If you use an Apple Mac computer, this can be done in the Mail program. Click the ‘Mail’ dropdown menu in the top left corner. Next, click ‘Preferences’.

When a new box opens, click the ‘Viewing’ tab near the top. There will be a check box marked ‘Load remote content in messages’ — uncheck that.

DON’T LET COOKIES GIVE YOU AWAY

Your internet browser is the program that allows you to surf the web, but it also gives away a lot about you.

For instance, when you visit a website your browser transmits information such as the last website you visited and what area you are from.

As you browse, you will collect so- called cookies as well. These allow websites to remember who you are, for example letting you add shopping items to a ‘basket’ as you move from page to page.

using other methods, some websites can also learn things about your computer that help to identify you. Despite its name, ‘Private browsing mode’ on your browser won’t actually give you much anonymity, although it will stop your computer recording your viewing history — useful if you are buying a gift for someone who also uses your computer.

However, with some free addons, you can make your browser more secure.

For Google Chrome, you can start by changing your settings. Do this by clicking the three dots symbol at the top right corner of the screen and choosing ‘Settings’ from the drop-down menu.

Now scroll down to the bottom of the page and click ‘Advanced’ to reveal more options.

Check the box next to an option that reads ‘Send a “Do not track' request....’.

using the ‘Do not track’ feature will not stop all websites tracking you, but it will reduce the number that do.

users of Firefox’s browser can follow a similar process. Click the icon with three stacked horizontal lines, located at the top right corner of the browser.

This will open a drop- down menu. Click ‘options’, then click the ‘Privacy’ tab when a new box appears. You can then check the box next to ‘Tell sites I do not want to be tracked’.

In Microsoft Edge or Internet Explorer, click the three dots symbol in the top right corner or ‘Tools’ and then click ‘Settings’ the drop-down menu. Click ‘view

advanced settings’ and turn on ‘Send do not track requests’.

If you are using an Apple Mac computer, you can change settings on the Safari internet browser.

Do this by clicking ‘Safari’ at the top left of the screen, and selecting ‘Preferences’ in the dropdown menu.

Next, click the ‘Privacy’ tab and check the boxes ‘Prevent crosssite tracking’ and ‘Ask websites not to track me’.

On all of these browsers, you can also clear your browsing data, such as cookies, by accessing the settings. This helps stop advertisers from tracking you.

However, remember that removing cookies means you will have to log back in to services such as email and Facebook the next time you visit, as they will no longer remember you automatically.

Finally, you can also clear the cookies stored on your computer by websites.

Do this on Google Chrome by clicking the three dots symbol at the top right corner of the screen, then hover over ‘More tools’. Click ‘Clear browsing data’ when the option appears.

In a new box that appears, you can choose the time period you want to clear. Check the box next to ‘Cookies and other site data’ and click ‘Clear browsing data’.

On Firefox, click the three dots symbol in the top right. Then click ‘Options’, and then ‘History’.

In a new page, click ‘Privacy & security’ on the left side. Then click ‘Clear History’. A box will appear. From a drop-down menu, choose the time period you want to clear. Then check the boxes next to ‘Cookies’, ‘Cache’ and ‘Offline web site data’ and click ‘Clear now’.

In Internet Explorer, click the cog symbol in the top right and then ‘ Tools’. Choose internet options, then click ‘Browsing history’. Next, click delete, and choose which things to delete, including ‘Cookies’. Click delete again.

In Safari, on an Apple computer, click ‘Safari’ in the top left of the screen. In the menu that appears, click ‘Preferences’.

A new box will appear. In this, click the ‘Privacy’ tab. Next click ‘ Manage website data’. To delete all cookies and data, click ‘Remove all’.

If you want extra protection from advertisements and different types of tracking, you can download socalled extensions for your internet browser for free.

One of the best is Privacy Badger, which was made by non-profit organisation the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Others include Ghostery, Disconnect and Adblock Plus.

KEEP SEARCHES UNDER WRAPS

IF YOU are a regular internet user, Google probably knows a lot about you.

Every time you use its search engine, it records what you look for. It also remembers the websites you visited, the videos you watched, the advertisements you clicked on, your location and the digital device you were using.

This valuable information helps it decide which advertisements it should show you. If you want Google to collect less information about you, there are a few things you can do.

If you have a Google account, you can see what information it has collected, broken down by day. To see this, visit myactivity.google.com/myactivity.

This will show you what you have searched, which ads were on the pages you viewed and videos that you watched.

You can ask Google to delete this data. Do this by clicking ‘Delete activity by’ on the left-hand side of the page. It will give you options of how much data to delete, including for ‘ Today’, ‘ Yesterday’, the past week or even ‘All time’.

When you’ve made your choice, click ‘Delete’. A prompt will then come up, explaining that your data is used to improve services. Click ‘ OK’. Then when another prompt comes up, click ‘Delete’.

To stop it from recording more data in future, go back to the ‘ My activity’ page. On the left- hand side again, click ‘Activity controls’.

Near the top of the page, next to ‘Web & App Activity’, you will see a blue toggle switch. Click the switch to turn off tracking of your web searches. Google will prompt you twice with a message before you do this. Click ‘ Pause’ both times to continue.

If you scroll down the page, you will see it is also possible to stop Google tracking your location history, device information, voice activity and YouTube searches.

Repeat the above process to disable them.

However, even after doing this, Google can still record information about you when you use its search function and map services using your internet protocol (IP) address. This is the unique string of numbers given to your computer when you browse the web, like a car’s registration plate.

There isn’t much you can do about this, other than changing the search engine you use.

Duck Duck Go ( duckduckgo.com) does not track its users.

HIDE SOCIAL LIFE FROM STRANGERS

IF YOU have a Facebook account, many settings are turned on by default and these allow strangers to view your posts and even potential employers to find you using Google.

You can make your settings more private, however, so that only friends and family can see what you publish.

To do this, log on to Facebook like you normally would. Next, find the blue bar running along the top of the screen and click the small, downward-pointing arrow at the end on the right hand side.

This will open a drop-down menu — click ‘Settings’. On the next page, click ‘Privacy’ in the column on the left-hand side.

Here, you can edit your preferences by changing who can see your posts and you can also retrospectively change who can see your old posts.

To change who can see what you put on Facebook, click the ‘Edit’ button that is next to ‘Who can see your future posts?’

This will open a small box, giving you the option to choose ‘public’, ‘ friends’, ‘ friends except...’, ‘specific friends’, or ‘only me’. You can also set up a custom setting, which gives you more complex options for who, specifically, can view your posts.

Next, you can also change the settings of your old posts by clicking ‘Limit past posts’ just below.

This will bring up another small box. Click ‘Limit past posts’ again inside this to apply current privacy settings to all the things you’ve posted in the past.

If your new settings only allow friends to see your posts, this will change past posts (which may have been viewable by anyone), so they can only be seen by friends in future.

Below these options, you also have similar choices for who is allowed to send you friend requests, who can see your list of friends, who can look you up using just an email address or phone number, and whether you want your profile to be listed on search engines such as Google. To stop search engines from listing your profile, click the ‘Edit’ button next to this option and uncheck the box next to the words ‘ Allow search engines outside Facebook to link to your profile’.

It is also possible to stop Facebook tracking your location when using a mobile device. To do this, click ‘ Location’ on the left hand column.

NEW RULES THAT SECURE YOUR DATA

NEW Europe-wide rules — called General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — came into force this year and can help you stop firms collecting data in secret.

Companies must now ask your permission to collect and use information about you, including your name, email address and internet browsing habits.

Many of these organisations do this with a message that pops up when you visit a website, usually saying: ‘We use cookies to improve your experience on our site...’

It will ask you to click ‘OK’ and allow them to create a cookie. Under GDPR, you have the right to request copies of the information organisations hold about you. You have the right to get your data corrected if it is wrong as well, or can ask for it to be deleted altogether.

BANKS, mobile networks and insurers are snooping on customers’ social media profiles before deciding whether to offer mortgages or other deals.

Lenders have long used financial records held by traditional credit reference firms when assessing applications for loans, mortgages and credit cards.

These reports, produced by companies such as Experian, Equifax and Trans-Union (previously Callcredit), show whether customers have kept up with repayments on existing debts and other contracts such as gas, electricity and phone bills.

But new high-tech credit profiling agencies have sparked privacy concerns after claiming social media can be used to verify a customer’s identity and predict whether they will pay back loans on time.

Friendly Score has worked with banks, car finance companies and mobile phone firms, including Carphone Warehouse’s iD Mobile. Before it can dig through your social media profiles, you have to agree to give it access by setting up an account online or downloading its mobile app.

If you allow access to your Twitter account, for example, it will look at your followers and what you post online to gain an understanding of your interests.

With access to your Gmail account, it can monitor the email receipts you receive from online shopping to see how you spend your money. From LinkedIn, it can check you have been honest about your employment history and qualifications.

Sign up for the mobile app and the firm can also monitor your whereabouts via its GPS tracker to see the places you visit and where you live and work. The app also has access to your contacts and advises you only to store the details of creditworthy friends and family on your phone.

‘Choose the friends and family that you keep in your contact book wisely,’ it says on the app.

Another firm, Hello Soda, has worked with payday lender Peachy.co.uk, Visa Europe, debt collectors, banks and insurers to look at new ways of verifying customers’ identities online and predicting whether they will repay loans.

In promoting a separate service called ‘The Online Me’, the company says: ‘Every time you make a submission for a loan, a house or a job, someone is vetting your social profiles . . .

‘Companies across all industries are continuing to utilise social media and draw upon your online information to make ( often incorrect) assumptions about you.’

Hello Soda says it will produce a report showing you what predictions companies are likely to make about you based on the data that is available online.

It claims: ‘You can then use this report to manipulate your online profiles to project the image that you want, preventing social media from hindering your applications.’

But if companies make incorrect assumptions from what you post online, it could lead to loans being rejected unfairly.

Andrew Montlake, director of mortgage broker Coreco, says: ‘I would be worried about lenders denying borrowers home loans based on what they have posted online.

‘Just because a computer algorithm says that someone who likes a certain TV show or shops in a particular supermarket is less likely to pay back their loan does not mean it will be true in every case.

‘It would be wrong to reject people for loans on the basis of sweeping judgments.’

So what can you do to protect yourself from this rising trend?

Think very carefully before allowing firms access to your social media profile in order to calculate your credit score. These companies may say their services can help people who do not already have a detailed credit history because they haven’t borrowed before, such as young applicants and those new to the country.

However, don’t forget that what they uncover from your social media habits might not paint you in a good light, so could also stop you getting a loan. Plus, watch out for websites that allow you to log in using your Facebook, Twitter or other social media accounts. You may be unwittingly allowing them access to all kinds of personal data and contacts that are stored in those accounts. Keep your Facebook settings private (see previous page), so that only close friends can see what you post. Make sure nothing you say online contradicts something you have stated in a loan or insurance application.

Lenders and insurers check publicly visible profiles to make sure that you haven’t lied about your job, income, marital status or details of a claim.

Neither Hello Soda nor Friendly Score could be reached for comment. Visa and iD Mobile say they no longer work with the firms and Visa says it does not credit score.

Speaking to Money Mail earlier this year, Loubna Bazine, chief executive of Friendly Score said: ‘All of the data analysis is done by machines. No humans look at it. We then pass the company a score and a short report of our findings.’

Trade body UK Finance says: ‘Firms use a range of techniques to establish customers’ identity and are continually looking at new ways to make this more straightforward, within the very strict privacy laws regarding the use of personal data.

‘ Firms are committed to lending responsibly and will consider alternative data that might enhance lending decisions by supplementing existing credit repayment history.’