Simple steps to keep personal data from tech giants
In our main article above we look at how actor Jack Walsh suspected his conversations were being used to target him with advertising. But how would this happen? I asked digtital security expert Graham Day to explain how words snatched from a conversation could trigger an ad.
‘Google could create an electronic code for the product or service. Then, when a recording is uploaded from a user, that recording is (or easily could be) matched for possible results to answer the request, and at the same time it will be matched to sponsor’s codes which could then push the ads to the user,’ he says.
‘Also, that digital recording is linked to the profile of the user which will then develop the bigger picture understanding of the user.’
The scary thing is that the likes of Google and Facebook know so much about us already that recording our conversations would add relatively little to the data we already give away freely.
They can collect information about you on virtually every website you visit – and they know exactly what you do there via cookies (your digital signature) and internet tracking.
They could supplement all this by buying in information from websites, credit reporting agencies and in-store loyalty programmes, so, for example, it could know your favourite tin of beans.
Last week the New York Times reported a survey of porn sites which found that 93% sent data to third-party domains, including Google and Facebook – as do most other websites, even when visited in privacy mode.
In the early days of the internet, digital giants had just a couple of bits of information to go on. Now Facebook has us divided up into 57,000 different categories of consumer to pitch ads to. When we allow these companies to harvest so much information about us ‘legitimately’, why are we so bothered if they get a little more by listening into our conversations as well?
So how can you protect your privacy online?
One trick to thwart that unwanted online eavesdropper is to put your phone on mute when not using your device.
There should be a button on the top left side of an iPhone, for example.
We also often unwittingly give access to our microphone via apps. You can also disable apps from accessing your microphone. On the iPhone, for
example, it works like this: 1. Open the settings app 2. Go to privacy 3. Tap microphone 4. This will show all the apps that you have granted access to your microphone – the main listening route. Toggle the switch to ‘off’ for those that you are concerned about.
When I checked my phone, I had three apps with access to microphone – Recorder, Care On Call (Laya) and WhatsApp. I don’t remember approving any of them. But I retained microphone access anyway because it is useful.
Another security step advised by Graham is to ‘introduce specific unique keywords to start the recording’ by Alexa or Siri, so that you don’t inadvertently record what’s going on in your life.
‘Also on your internet browser you can install a nad blocker or other application to manage what is presented on your browser,’ he said.
When I went into settings on my phone, I was able to block cookies and tracking which allow the digital giants to follow my every move online.
But when I went to do the same in my laptop, it warned that I may not be able to access websites if I block cookies and I chickened out.
And here lies the problem: I didn’t want to interrupt my usually speedy and widespread internet access.
We all want free and quick internet browsing and socialising via Facebook and Google.
As Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg says: ‘Facebook is free and always will be.’
But there are other ways besides money through which he can extract payment.