I’ve written about online privacy countless times, so why can’t I take my own advice?
Nicole Kobie is PC Pro’s Futures editor. Please don’t take this as an invitation to invade her privacy. @njkobie
Do you want to know how to stay private online? I can tell you, but don’t ask to see my own settings. I’ve been writing about technology so long that certain how-to pieces can’t help but repeat. Some of that is the cyclical nature of the industry – how many AI boom and bust cycles will we endure before we learn to stop hyping the idea beyond its capabilities?
– but it also reflects the nature of the challenges created by the rise of the web, smartphones, social media and so on. After all, Facebook turns 20 this year, and Mark Zuckerberg’s executives still haven’t solved privacy issues on the social media giant.
So it’s no surprise that one of the topics I keep coming back to is online privacy. This makes sense: the tips and tricks need to be regularly updated and spread as widely as possible. But something struck me in my latest foray into the subject, as I meticulously worked though settings on social media, smartphones and web platforms: I have always ignored my own advice.
I can’t help it. I struggle to care about my own online privacy. I mean, I do think it’s important. But unless I’m being paid by the word to explain security settings, I’ll leave them at their defaults.
I’ll happily advise anyone using social media to work through their privacy preferences regularly, to ensure you haven’t accidentally given permission to a dodgy app to view your data or that the site in question hasn’t changed how its privacy model operates. Have I done that myself? Of course not, it’s too boring.
I have an ad-blocker extension enabled on my Chrome browser, but that’s less to do with privacy and more to do with loading times. And if a dodgy gossip site begs me to disable the extension to access its questionable content, I do so every time. Cookie pop-ups? I know I should carefully read through the settings. Instead I click to accept the default mode, full of trackers, because I can’t be bothered. I hate the thought of Google Photos training its facial recognition systems on my toddler’s beautiful face, but I also like being able to effortlessly see photos of her from key milestones. I am lazy and I treasure convenience.
I’m not totally open online. My Instagram and Facebook accounts are set to private, I’ve stopped signing up with
