Data Privacy Day (DPD) is January 28. Sounds exciting, right? I’m sure you’ve got the pinata stuffed and the presents on the way.

What is DPD about?

It’s all about me!

We generally don’t like to use this phrase. It’s considered selfish and arrogant, leading others to dislike us. But in the case of data privacy, it’s acceptable. Personally, I’m not very interested in being compared to what statistics might say about what data is collected from others. I’m personally invested in keeping certain details about me private, and I want to know which aspects of my data are being collected by whom and for what reason.

We all differ in what we want to keep private. Some people are happy to talk out loud in detail about their latest surgery, while some are like an infosec professional I know who uses an avatar photo and pseudonym for all online interactions and also has a PO Box for any shipments. This person is serious about not letting anyone know their identity. The important effort is protecting the personal information that you want to be protected.

How do we check our Privacy Settings?

Anyone who has worked with music in a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) is familiar with using tools such as quantize and latency. The DAW that one uses determines where the settings get changed, but the settings are there. Of course, this goes for any software. File à Open… may be in the upper left or on a sidebar. Alternatively, you may even need to use a keyboard shortcut.

On a similar note, each device has privacy settings that determine what cookies are enabled, if location data is shared, etc. They’re all there, but the device determines where the settings get changed. Just like any software menus, one has (Read more...)