Privacy, it starts with yourself!

Today is European Privacy Day, also known as Data Protection Day. The Council of Europe and the European Commission created this day to inform citizens about the rights they have when they provide personal data (digitally) to companies and agencies. Their goal is also to raise awareness about how citizens themselves handle and provide personal data.

Privacy awareness

Awareness is a great place to start! The development of the Internet and devices connected to it has been rapid in recent years. The ease with which you look something up or publish something on the Internet has been optimized to a few keys on a device out of your pocket or on your wrist. Despite that enormous ease of use that these technological advances offer us, there is also a downside. With the increasing complexity of services, services and platforms, it has also become more opaque what, where and to whom your search or publication goes.

Tracking cookies

An example is a tracking cookie. By placing a small file on your computer, a website can track which pages you visit so that a profile can be built to serve you better. Because tracking cookies are very often placed from another domain, by other (commercial) parties, they are also referred to as third party cookies. These third party cookies are then used on multiple websites and so these parties can build up a broad and detailed profile of you. The use of tracking cookies has become more common since the introduction of new cookie law tied to certain conditions in 2012. For example, visitors must be informed about the data being collected and there must be an option to turn off these cookies. This law, however noble, unfortunately misses the mark. Often you encounter a completely covering screen with the announcement " we use cookies. Ok?"(cookie wall) Or simply a notification at the bottom or top of your screen, "we use cookies, by using our website you agree".(cookie banner) Which quickly tempts you, yes, yes, yes fine, where is the content!?. The purpose of the cookie law is to protect visitors from unsolicited/unknowing "tracking" of their activities and interest. But due to the implementation methods (cookie banner and cookie wall) it misses the mark a bit. As a visitor, I sometimes have no choice but to either accept cookies or no content. The law was therefore revised in 2016 to accommodate both the website owner and the visitor.

Post away!

In addition to the opaque (technical) part, there is also a part you can control. When using a service, service or an app, it is always wise to look at things like, privacy statement, settings ect. Is it necessary for an app to know my location or have access to all my contacts? Or is it necessary for the functioning of the service or app. What does the service or app do with the (meta-) data they collect about me? But it is also wise to have some alertness when using services. When you post online " look I'm here now!!! And it's great " indicate here not only where you are but also where you are not! Even posting a nice photo, can sometimes have unpleasant and long-lasting consequences, as we see in the example of Anas Modamani. The thought, I'll remove the content, unfortunately does not always hold true. When you publish something on the Internet, it is often cached, backed up or duplicated. So gone is not always gone!

Privacy by design

Of course, the responsibility does not lie entirely with the user. The industry has a very big duty & responsibility to take here! Fortunately, more and more companies are doing this. When developing or expanding products and services, privacy by design is increasingly being taken as a starting point. This essentially means that from the beginning of development, privacy (monitoring) is included as a basic requirement in the product to be realized. There is also often a consideration of what data or should be stored and whether this is necessary at all for proper operation. After all, by storing itself, the company also runs a risk of data leakage. Increasingly, the motto is, if there is no/little privacy-sensitive data, it cannot be leaked (or the privacy impact is small). Privacy monitoring is thus a not only the responsibility of industry, but also of the individual! Be mindful of it!