How to keep your computer and smartphone data private

By G KIONGO

Nairobi, Kenya: Technology as we know it today is pretty awesome. Among its benefits are that it enables us do so much more in a day, helps us stay connected to the people we love — busy lifestyles notwithstanding, and it  brings people from all around the world closer; who wouldn’t love all this?

But despite all these advantages, the level of technology we encounter in our lives is a double-edged sword. It can be detrimental to our lives and relationships in so many more ways than we might care to count.

Perhaps the most pressing concern in an era of various snooping scandals is privacy, and how to stop individuals, organisations and public institutions from violating it.

As a privacy advocate, I cringe when I look at some social profiles online and the information people post in search of elusive likes and followers.

A cursory glance at most of them will show you what someone looks like, where they live, where they work, and where they are; it’s a burglar’s paradise.

Most people overlook the fact that this information is not just for their friends to see. A lot of private details posted online can be accessed by all and sundry.

Worse still, somewhere in the background, someone is collecting this data and basically building a profile on who you are and what you like for security, commercial or nefarious reasons.

For many people, this is an acceptable trade off for the marvels of a social media  presence and having a repository of memories.

This proves privacy is elementally subjective, but for those of us not ready to bare it all out there, there are a couple of ways to limit the invasion of technology into our privacy. The following options are by no means exhaustive, so you may want to research some more.

PRIVACY ON COMPUTERS

The programmes most of us use to get online are Internet browsers, like Mozilla’s Firefox, Google’s Chrome or Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. One of the first ways to protect your privacy on a computer is to manage browser cookies.

Before your sweet tooth gets all excited, the cookies I’m talking about are pieces of small data. These are sent from a website and stored in a user’s browser while the user is on that particular site.

They are meant to collect useful information about the state of some online transactions, but are now being used to track your online activity for commercial reasons. Regularly deleting cookies makes it harder for sites to keep tabs on you.

Browsers also come with pre-built privacy modes that you can utilise. These modes limit the amount of data left on a browser after you use it. If you want to be sure though, or are using an old version of a browser, you can delete your browser history manually. 

The more obvious way to protect your privacy on a computer is to have it password protected.

Also, make sure you keep tabs on the programmes installed in your PC lest you find that you are unknowingly hosting snooping software. If you find anything that looks unfamiliar, research it online.

PRIVACY ON SMARTPHONES

Aside from just password-protecting your gadget, one of the best ways to keep private the data on your phone is through encryption.

This can be done in a couple of ways, including downloading security-oriented applications like antiviruses, or making use of innate phone software features. For instance, Android gives you the option of encrypting your whole phone so that if it fall in the wrong hands, all the data in it will be gibberish without your power-on password.

Also, always turn off the wireless features on your phone that are currently not in use. From Bluetooth to GPS, these can be used to glean quite a bit information on you.

As for apps, whenever you download and install them, always check the information they get access to, which could be your contacts, location or phone and data usage.

Keeping your privacy is hard work, but it is worth it. And when it comes to social media, be aware of what you post and how much it could tell a discerning bad guy.

The writer is a tech enthusiast.

Send questions or concerns to bizbeat@standardmedia.co.ke