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Digital Privacy

Privacy is not secrecy. It is deciding what you disclose, to whom, and for how long. Thirty articles on what you emit, who collects it, and what actually reduces your exposure.

Privacy is not secrecy. It is the ability to decide what you disclose, to whom, and for how long. This section covers what you emit, who collects it, what the law does and does not require of them, and the practical steps that reduce your exposure.

Everything here is organised by subject. If you want the practical walkthroughs instead, start with the How-To Guides. If you want to understand how collection becomes attribution at scale, see Ubiquitous Technical Surveillance.

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  1. Digital Privacy - It matters
    Free services are not free; the price is quoted in data you never see itemized. What ubiquitous technical surveillance actually collects on an ordinary…
  2. What to protect?
    You cannot defend a list you have never written down. Driver's license, bank, inbox, location history — each one says something specific about you, and…
  3. The Privacy Line
    Most people cannot say what they consider private until someone makes them write it down. Draw that line on paper first, and every later decision about…

Tracking

How you get followed across sites, apps, and devices, and what stops it.

Identity

What ties activity back to a person, and how those links get made.

OPSEC

Compartmentalisation and operational discipline rather than individual settings.

  • Why Personal Privacy Matters to Corporations
    Nobody finishes annual security training feeling motivated. But people will work to protect themselves — and the habits that do it happen to harden the…
  • Privacy Fatigue
    You have to get it right every day. A hunter only has to be right once. That asymmetry wears people down, and the research says it is exhaustion, not…
  • Privacy meet Security
    Three questions, in order, before any tool or setting: what are you protecting, how long does it need to hold, and what data gives it away. Everything…

Device Hardening

Making a specific device harder to compromise, from defaults chosen for someone else's benefit.

  • Revoke Camera and Microphone Access (Android)
    Most guides still send you to Settings then Privacy, and a level was added since. Here is where the permission manager actually lives now, plus the…
  • Safety Check and Access Audit (Apple)
    Access accumulates quietly: a shared album, a partner's old device, an app you approved once and forgot. Apple built a wizard that lists all of it in one…
  • Disable Siri on iPhone
    Two minutes in Settings. Switching Siri off is the easy part; the recordings Apple is already holding need a separate request before they go anywhere.

Threat Modeling

Deciding what you are protecting and from whom, before choosing any tool.

  • The Privacy Line
    Most people cannot say what they consider private until someone makes them write it down. Draw that line on paper first, and every later decision about…
  • Privacy Meets Security
    The digital world has allowed us to connect globally while making geographic separation matter very little. This has changed the world and allowed for new…

The statutes and rules that govern collection, and where they fall short.

  • SPAM CALLS BE GONE!
    Registering takes five minutes and costs nothing, but it only binds callers who were already following the law. Scammers were never checking the list …
  • SparkPress - Privacy and Security News
    A snapshot of what privacy news looked like in October 2023, back when passkeys were still a novelty and the first White House order on AI had just…

Location

Where you have been, who knows, and how long the record lasts.

Telephony

Phone numbers, calls, and the records they generate.

Social Media

Platform exposure and the settings that reduce it.

Other sections: Security · Ubiquitous Technical Surveillance · How-To Guides