What you surrender
Here is a brief guide to the data you typically surrender:
Almost every communication app requires one’s phone number. This is an identifier that most people are familiar with and most apps, even Signal, require it to function. There are some chat apps like Briar and Element that make use of a username instead, but these are extreme cases.
One step further is a device identifier, commonly called a fingerprint. This fingerprint is made up of a combination of bits about a browser/device that makes a user unique (like browser type and version, operating system, language, time zone, active extensions, installed fonts, screen resolution, CPU class, device memory, IMEI, etc). This is generally given up by the time a page is loaded or an app is installed, even if a user isn’t signed in to a service’s account. Facebook, Google, Twitter, and TikTok use this identifier to track users, even while they’re using other apps. Other providers, like Microsoft collect these, but don’t use them to track users across the Web.
Contact lists make up another vital piece of data one surrenders. Even though most apps don’t really need them (like Facebook and Twitter, where you can build networks through names or handles), apps like WhatsApp need a contact list to establish relationships about who can connect with you. These are tricky to take down, because most services don’t show users where they are stored and how they can be removed.
Even if your GPS is off, location data is generally collected by most services like Facebook, Google, and now, WhatsApp. This is done through one’s IP address, which can expose the area where you live down to exactly where you live. The former two services use this data to target relevant ads at users, while WhatsApp’s intended use of this kind of data is still unknown (and will likely benefit Facebook in the end). Diligently using a VPN service can help mask where one is. But, be warned, Google and Facebook know that people can’t (yet) travel from Cape Town to Geneva in under 5 seconds.
How one searches and browses through a service like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok is linked to a user. The services use keywords from searches and interactions from browsing history to target ads at a user at a later stage. Apart from Twitter, services don’t use this to track users across app/the Web — instead, they use it for their own advertising networks and analytics.
Best advice: using Google and Facebook’s Privacy Checkup, and Microsoft’s Privacy Hub, can help users keep a finger on their online privacy pulse.
It won’t be all doom and gloom for long: Google’s hand has been forced, to use Federated Learning of Cohorts, which is a method to collect and anonymise data about a user on a device. This allows users to get “lost in the crowd” of people who have similar interests, while keeping advertisers happy that they’re still personalising their ads. It’s not that much better, because personalised ads will never not be creepy, but it’s a step in the right direction for user privacy.
* Goldstuck is founder of World Wide Worx and editor-in-chief of Gadget.co.za. Follow him on Twitter on @art2gee
Go to the next page to see what data the major apps and platforms collect from you
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