HEXUS article
How seriously do you take online privacy? Are you concerned by giant corporations gathering data? Do you actively try to prevent it from happening? Or you do simply accept that sharing your personal data is the price you pay for living in a modern world?
Seriously enough that I suspect lots here would regard it as paranoid.
Do I read T&Cs? Yes. And regularly decline to provide personal info, or place orders, as a result.
Social media sites, like FB, Twitrer, etc? No way.
Smartphone? No.
Tablet? Yes, but …. NO personal info at all on it. None whatever. And GPS turned off. And I'm VERY selective about installed apps, and DO check what permissions are required.
Store Reward Cards? No. I'm not selling by buying habits to stores?
Online purchases? Not very often.
Credit /Debit card? Yes, but haven't used either for weeks or months. Cash rules, and keeps nosy companies out of my face.
Multiple bank accounts? Yes. No one bank gets a complete picture.
Foreign bank account? Yes, but usage is nominal.
Telephone numbers? Few have my landline, and even fewer my mobile. I'm VERY selective about giving that out. Even my bank have to write to me.
Junk mail opt-outs? Hell yes, for many years.
Opred out from medical data sharing? Oh yes. Opted out several years ago from the last lot, and again recently from care.data, and on BOTH occasions visited the Practice Manager at my GP to make my views crystal clear, and hand-delivered explicit written instructions on the point at the same time.
Whatever the circumstances,
including perceived medical emergencies, NO data is to be shared about me without my WRITTEN permission where I have ANY right to block it. That includes sharing with hospitals. And I do that in full knowledge of the risks involved.
And so on.
That's how seriously I take my privacy.
Can I entirely protect my privacy? No. But I can go a long way towards it, and I go as far as seems reasonable
to me. YMMV, of course.
One thing is certain. Once you've lost control of data, you've lost it forever. So, if you're going to start limiting what you let out, the sooner you start, the less will be out there.
Oh, and periodically, I change telephone supplier and mobile phone carrier, or phone, in order to change number.
And I have one mobile phone the number of which I do give out when I need to, like to government. Good luck finding it turned on, though. ;)
