How to Protect Our Data Privacy While Using a Smartphone?

We have a world that is governed by data. How worthless you believe you’re, your name and D.O.B can be sold for a huge amount in the present world. We hesitate to tell our neighbours how old we are, but we don’t mind even sharing our private data on social media. Thus, the circumstances of our data getting worse, or we have made the bad to the worse!

What do these people do with our name and Date of birth? Many common people have this in their mind and this doubt is one of the major reasons why they neglect all warnings that government and similar bodies give. They sell your data to giants. Those giants understand your needs and will start to force you to buy things or services or if they don’t see a necessity, they will pray for us to get into trouble! Thus by recklessly sharing our data, we’re creating a group of people who will wait for us to fail in our life. That’s their business.

Now, what can we do to protect our data privacy, by keeping our Smartphone contents from reaching demon hands? If you’re reading this article from a smartphone, you have some little things to do to protect your mobile data privacy. But who's there without a smartphone? So, I’m here to talk about those ‘little things’: those little things that we can do to save our data from being stolen from our smartphones.

ALTERNATIVE GOOGLE ACCOUNT

‘Sign-in with Google account’. This option is a huge relief for many of us when we are getting into an unfamiliar app or website. But how many of you know that by doing that, we are asking Google to share our data with the concerned app/website? Yes, that’s what is happening there.

Now, what can we do to prevent this privacy threat? Shouldn’t we sign in with Google, anymore? Don’t make a sudden conclusion. That alone can't solve this problem. We should open an alternative Google account. Google allows us to open multiple Google accounts (email IDs). Create a Google account without sharing much of your data. Remember to add a mobile number to a sim card that is not inserted in a smartphone. Google will send a verification code initially and there ends the role of sim card.

Later, whenever you want to sign in to an app or a website that you’re not familiar with, use this Google account or email ID thus generated. This can, up to a great extent, save you from losing your data. Never count this as a crime; it is nothing big as losing your privacy.

2. NEGLIGENCE OF SPAMS

Spams are messages, emails and posts that come without aiming at us. They contain ads that push us to do something that becomes more beneficial to them. We, on hearing that we can win certain prizes through them, will fill forms and share whatever data that they want from us. PLEASE AVOID THIS! All those lucky draws won’t be bringing luck to you; some are created in a way that brings luck to the organisers alone.

There are three things that you can do here. The very first one is to turn your head from these messages and completely neglect them. The second one is to make sure that you participate in contests that are organised by huge names like Amazon, Flipkart etc... Finally, make sure that you share only data that you find reasonable for the contest and not your personal data, i.e., a phone number or email ID for contacting you; address to deliver the prize or bank details which should be account number, IFS code and bank branch name alone.

3. ABIDE BY GOOGLE

Most people blame Google for stealing and selling our data. But I don’t agree with that. If Google has done so, you have agreed to do so. Moreover, when we compare with what all services they offer us in return what we lose is negligible. So they are ‘Robin Hood’ of our personal data.

Coming back to the point, we started discussing that we allowed Google to steal our data. Not only Google, many websites ask our permission before taking our data. But without recognising that it was a warning, we allowed them and lost everything.

Google has an intelligent mechanism to warn us when we get into a website where we can experience theft of data. Do listen to that and act wisely. One thing you have to make sure of is that you download files from websites that are marked as reliable by Google alone. (As android users are a majority of my readers, I am not mentioning other Operating systems.)

4. RELIABLE ALTERNATIVES

Some websites make us feel it is the final option to find something, let it be a song or a movie. This makes us forget the ‘etiquettes’ about which we talked till now, and share everything they ask, generously.

But what you forget is that we always have a reliable alternative. Think you want to find a song or movie, the Telegram app is one of the most reliable names for finding movies and songs as downloadable files. Similarly, ask experts and find reliable alternatives, before jumping into big dangers. Don’t welcome threats to your private data for the sake of a cheerful song!

5. AN ADDITIONAL INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT

When we come to social media, it is a huge source for marketing; both good and bad. So what shall we do there? There too, we would have to open an alternative account. Since it is impossible on Facebook, we can open one on Instagram.

When you feel you want to get in touch with a company or a person you don’t believe in, rather than share your phone number or Email ID. I bet you that if that firm is a reliable and standard one, they will keep their social media profile active and interactive.

6. WI-FI; THE SILENT ROBBER

Wi-Fi or wireless fidelity was a boon to many users all around the world. Like Zuckerburg’s dream, the internet becomes free of costs like water and air, up to a great extent. But the threat of data privacy while using Wi-Fi is a grave issue that we shouldn’t neglect. It is advised that we should never login to our e-banking portal similar websites while we are using a private Wi-Fi network. Don’t get into the technical side, but it is a serious warning that you have chances to lose information like passwords, by doing so.

No option can help us completely from data privacy concerns, other than forgiving our smartphones. But we can do the things I suggested above to forestall the privacy threat from becoming worse. let us safely keep it bad itself!. Hope you all will find this article useful.