Privacy
Everything I’ve written on Privacy, newest first.
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- Privacy · 15 September 2026
Email tracking pixels: who knows you opened it?
Most marketing emails, and some personal ones, report when and where you opened them. You can turn most of it off.
- Privacy · 27 August 2026
Back to school: set up your kids’ accounts properly
New school year, new apps and logins. Ten minutes of setup protects children’s accounts and the family devices.
- Privacy · 16 July 2026
Website analytics without tracking people
You can count visits and popular pages without cookies, cookie banners or sending visitor data to an ad company.
- Privacy · 23 June 2026
Data brokers sell your details. Ask them to stop
Your phone number, address and relatives are listed on people-search sites. Removal is tedious but works.
- Privacy · 28 May 2026
Review what your phone apps can access
Apps collect permissions over the years: location, contacts, microphone, photos. Ten minutes on your phone cleans most of it up.
- Privacy · 9 April 2026
Your photos may carry your location
Photos can include where and when they were taken. Most social apps strip it. Email, chat files and websites often don’t.
- Privacy · 24 February 2026
Odido: telecom data published after no deal
Attackers stole data on millions of Odido customers from a contact system and began publishing it. Telecom data feeds SIM-swap fraud.
- Privacy · 5 February 2026
AI meeting notes: who else is in the call?
AI note-takers record, transcribe and store your meetings somewhere. Decide where, and tell people before you start.
- Privacy · 12 January 2026
Your customers’ data lives at your partners too
Ledger told customers their order details were exposed through its e-commerce partner. Your checkout provider holds the same kind of data.
- Privacy · 1 February 2022
The data you don’t keep can’t leak
Every field you collect is something to protect forever. Collect less, keep it shorter, delete on schedule.
- Privacy · 24 August 2021
T-Mobile’s breach: your carrier holds your identity
Data on tens of millions of people, including ID numbers, was stolen. Lock your mobile account and credit.
- Privacy · 6 April 2021
533 million Facebook numbers: smarter scams
Old scraped data is now free online. Your number, name and job make phishing much more personal.
- Privacy · 19 January 2021
Switching to Signal? What actually changes
WhatsApp’s new privacy terms sent millions to Signal this month. Both encrypt messages. The difference is the data around them.
- Privacy · 11 August 2020
Blackbaud paid the ransom for a promise
A software provider to charities and universities paid attackers to delete stolen data. Its customers are now notifying donors.
- Privacy · 26 May 2020
EasyJet breach: expect travel phishing
Data on 9 million easyJet customers was accessed, including travel details. That makes refund scams very believable.
- Privacy · 21 April 2020
Contact tracing apps: what to look for
Apple and Google’s design for exposure notification keeps data on phones. Not every country’s app works that way.
- Privacy · 25 February 2020
MGM’s guest data is online. Expect the calls
Details of 10.6 million MGM hotel guests, from a 2019 breach, were posted on a hacking forum. Old data, new scams.
- Privacy · 17 December 2019
Ring cameras: reused passwords, no 2FA
Strangers spoke to families through hacked Ring cameras. Ring blames reused passwords. Turn on two-factor authentication.
- Privacy · 3 December 2019
The FBI’s advice on smart TVs
Before the holiday shopping season, the FBI warned about smart TV cameras and microphones. Here’s the short version.
- Privacy · 8 January 2019
Marriott: 5 million passport numbers, unencrypted
Marriott’s updated breach numbers include millions of unencrypted passport numbers. Data you must keep, you must protect.