privacy – Page 2 – Media! Tech! Parenting!

21st Century life, advertising, data collecting, digital life, online tracking, privacy

How I Try to Maintain Privacy (or at Least Some) in My Digital World

Posted on March 4, 2019March 9, 2019 by Marti Weston

Today a person’s personal information is a commodity, and privacy is a struggle to maintain. I want to stop (or at least slow down) Facebook, Google and all their advertisers (not to mention Cambridge Analytica) from vacuuming up my information.

Of course I’ve turned on the privacy controls on all my accounts and apps, and I recheck them on a regular basis, but that’s only one small part of the personal privacy picture. Below are 14 more steps that I take to ensure that at least some of my personal information is less available. Continue reading “How I Try to Maintain Privacy (or at Least Some) in My Digital World” →

21st Century life, digital literacy, intention verses consequence, media literacy, privacy

Privacy: When Will They Ever Learn?

Posted on June 7, 2017March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

Uploaded by Mancala at English Wikipedia [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

What will it take to make adolescents and teens understand that what they do just about anywhere is not private — even if it’s digital and feels like a limited number of others will know? Perhaps we are about to find out.

Harvard University recently rescinded acceptances from ten or more incoming students who formed a “private” Facebook page and traded sexually explicit and disgusting memes about kids, women, and people of color. Putting aside the loathsome behavior — just for a moment — why on earth would these young people consider any Facebook group or any other online group to be private, even if it has private in its name?

Crimson reporter Hannah Natanson writes:

In the group students sent each other memes and other images mocking sexual assault, the Holocaust, and the deaths of children, according to screenshots of the chat obtained by The Crimson. Some of the messages joked that abusing children was sexually arousing, while others had punchlines directed at specific ethnic or racial groups…

Continue reading “Privacy: When Will They Ever Learn?” →

21st Century life, online data collecting, parents and technology, personal data, privacy, tips and tricks

My Need For Google Decreases Each Time My Privacy Feels Threatened

Posted on May 25, 2017March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

I’ve written before about the growing loss of privacy in our 21st Century lives.

Just about everything we do these days creates data that can be collected by someone. Found on Pixabay.

Now, after reading the Washington Post article Google Now Knows When Its Users Go to the Store to Buy Stuff, I am even more concerned about privacy. Fellow blog readers, you should be too.

In essence, Google is now using credit card data, to combine with the data it has already collected about us, to learn more about our purchases — those made online and those we purchase without any online connection. The goal, according to Washington Post reporters Elizabeth Dwoskin and Craig Timberg, is to discover whether Google ’s searches and its advertisements have helped people decide what to buy — even when a purchase isn’t made online.

The company continues to collect data and learn more and more about people of all ages. That’s creepy. It feels even more creepy when I consider how we use Gmail in my family to share calendars and when I look at the Google Dashboard that keeps track of and shares with me some of the data Google has collected about us.

Most Interesting Quote From the Article Continue reading “My Need For Google Decreases Each Time My Privacy Feels Threatened” →

21st Century Learning, 21st Century life, digital health and wellness, digital life, parents and technology

What Do You Know About Artificial Intelligence & How It May Affect Your Life?

Posted on April 20, 2017March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

https://pixabay.com/en/users/geralt-9301/

Ideas about artificial intelligence (AI) have tended to swirl around without offering me much to think about. I use Siri and Hello Google on my iPhone, I’m aware of the increasingly powerful social media algorithms, and I’ve watched, with some interest, the accomplishments of IBM’s Watson. Yet I haven’t really thought much about it.

The developments and decisions made about AI over the next couple of years may well affect our lives and the lives of our descendants. It’s best to get to know a bit about what is going on, especially when it comes to personal privacy, and also to ensure that our children learn about the positive and negative aspects of artificial intelligence.

Over the past several days I’ve read Maureen Dowd’s long and detailed report in Vanity Fair, Elon Musk’s Future Shock, describing the unbridled, and sometimes turbulent Silicon Valley debate about AI. This is the first detailed AI article that I’ve read, and it offers readers much to think about as Dowd circles, again and again, from Elon Musk to other AI researchers who oppose his views and back Musk again. I’ve realized that artificial intelligence is no longer something we see in science fiction movies. It may well affect our health and digital wellness. Continue reading “What Do You Know About Artificial Intelligence & How It May Affect Your Life?” →

21st Century life, cell phones, mobile phones, privacy

Your Phone Knows a Lot About You: Even When You Think You’ve Secured It

Posted on March 6, 2017 by Marti Weston

screen-shot-2017-03-06-at-10-49-13-am Those of us who want to maintain a modicum of privacy in our digital and mobile phone lives, not to mention our 21st Century kids’ lives, may be interested in a question answered by writer J.D. Biersdorfer, on his New York Times Personal Tech blog.

Answering the question, How Your Phone Knows Where You Have Been?, Biersdorfer explains lots more about the GPS function on a mobile phone, describes what’s collected, and tells how to fine out how Apple and Google use the information. He also describes, with screen shots, how to reset or disable the information collecting. It turns out that shutting off location services, or leaving them on and allowing just a few apps to use location data, is not enough. On the iPhone, more privacy settings, in a category called system services, are buried inside the location list.

Parents and teachers may want to learn a lots more about how a mobile phone keeps track of a user’s whereabouts and this column provides lots of information. Interestingly, some parents have told me that they like examining, from time-to-time, the map that the GPS leaves, especially on their kids phones.

Check it out.

21st Century life, parents and technology, password security, personal data, privacy

Can Honesty With Security Questions Not Be the Best Policy?

Posted on February 1, 2017March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

Do your security question answers unlock too much personal information?

We hear a lot of discussion about secure passwords, but now people are wondering whether we should pay more attention to the answers we give for security questions.

The article Why You Should Lie When Setting Up Password Security Questions, over at the Techlicious site, makes me wonder whether security questions — and the answers that we provide — should be re-evaluated. The article emphasizes the lack of security and privacy in our lives and notes that by giving answers to security questions that describe our personal lives we set ourselves up for potential identity theft problems when hacks do occur.

Continue reading “Can Honesty With Security Questions Not Be the Best Policy?” →

21st Century Learning, 21st Century life, 21st Century parenting, data collecting, kids and privacy, online data collecting, parents and technology, privacy

More on Using DuckDuckGo & My Extra Bit of Privacy

Posted on December 5, 2016July 31, 2019 by Marti Weston

screen-shot-2016-12-05-at-2-38-25-pm — Check it out.

Last June I wrote How Much Privacy Do I Have? DuckDuckGo Gives More, describing how I am using the DuckDuckGo search engine for most of my online inquiries. Interestingly after six months using the alternative, I’ve made some observations and noticed some changes. I’m so glad that I switched.

Check out what I’ve learned below. Continue reading “More on Using DuckDuckGo & My Extra Bit of Privacy” →