One of my favourite things about living in a major university city, as I do, is the abundance of public lectures. Last month I was fortunate enough to attend one on internet security, which included a chilling account of how much data is being collected about us and the implications of that. It made me all the more determined to at least make things difficult for the organisations recording everything I do online.
One interesting resource which I’ve just seen is securitycheckli.st, “an open source checklist of resources designed to improve your online privacy and security.” This has options and resources under a whole range of headings, including:
- Use a password manager
- Create a strong device passcode
- Use two-factor authentication
- Encrypt your devices
- Use a privacy-first web browser
- Use a privacy-first search engine
…and many more. There are links to how to go about each action, and background reading which might convince you of its necessity. It’s unlikely that we can genuinely escape surveillance, even if we go offline, but we can make an effort. I understand many people’s argument that ‘I have nothing to hide’; however, as Edward Snowden said: “Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”