There are many applications that we use on a day to day basis, whether these are on our personal computers or mobile devices. Some of these applications gain permissions to access sensitive data such as your contact lists, photos, or even text messages when you install them. One way for you to manage the access these applications have is to adjust the permissions on your devices. Both Android and iOS offer fairly extensive application permission management, so you can turn on or off whether an app can access your photos or calendar if it is a music player for example.
Another way to ensure your data is safe is with encryption. Encryption scrambles data based on an algorithm and cannot be unscrambled unless the correct key is provided. This type of encryption can be enabled locally on your device and there are applications that enabled encrypted communication, so anyone who were to intercept encrypted data would not be able to read it without that key. Two of the best encrypted messaging applications are Signal and WhatsApp which are available on both Android and iOS. iOS users also have access to iMessage, which is encrypted but only with others on the iOS platform.
Here at Brookens Library, we try to ensure the privacy of each of our patrons. When you use a public computer, whether with a NetID account or public account, all information from that session is automatically removed and the account settings are wiped when the computer is restarted. When you return a book or other item to the library, our system removes the record so that nobody has access to who checked out what item and when. Anything that gets printed at our circulation desk that contains personal information, or anything that could possibly identify a patron, is securely shredded.
Learn more about your digital privacy:
Weapons of Math Destruction eBook | eAudiobook | Book
What's New at Brookens 