Tick-tock tick-tock . . . Do you know where your data is at 9 o’clock?

The most recent news about TikTok being banned in the United States sparked worldwide conversations. Many of those conversations were around the question “who has access to our data, and why do they want it?”

Data, in its simplest form, is information. It can be personal information—name, age, address, birthdate, email address, etc. It could be behavioral—websites you visit, time spent on an app, search history, shopping habits, location tracking, etc. It can be social—friend connections, likes, reactions, comments, shares, how long you have watched a video, group memberships, etc. It could be financial—your purchase history, banking details, income information, shopping patterns and the like. It could be technical—what phone you use, device IP addresses, browser type, Wi-Fi connections and other such data.

Would you believe me if I told you that companies have built their businesses based on having information about you? Companies want your data for targeted advertising, product development, behavior prediction and market research.

Are your devices listening to you? Well, yes and no. Your location history, shopping patterns, and friends’ interests are important in determining what content appears in your feed. If several friends in your network suddenly become interested in fitness, algorithms assume you might be, too. Understanding this digital fingerprinting process helps demystify the seemingly supernatural ability of our devices to predict our interests. It’s not all about eavesdropping on conversations—it’s about reading the digital trail we leave behind daily.

Per Reuters, Apple agreed to pay $95 million in cash to settle a proposed class action lawsuit claiming that its voice-activated Siri assistant violated users’ privacy. However, after the settlement, Apple said it has “never used Siri data to build marketing profiles, never made it available for advertising, and never sold it to anyone for any purpose.”

“Apple does not retain audio recordings of Siri interactions unless users explicitly opt-in to help improve Siri, and even then, the recordings are used solely for that purpose,” Apple said, adding that it will continue developing technologies to make Siri even more private.

A similar lawsuit for users of Google’s Voice Assistant is pending in the San Jose, California, federal court. The same law firms represent the plaintiffs as in the Apple case.

Your data is not just floating “in the cloud,” but in physical locations, in various data centers as well as in your own device storage. For example, Meta (Facebook) stores your data across multiple locations, both locally and internationally, with backup copies. The location where your data is stored affects who can access it. Different locations have various security levels. Other countries have different privacy laws, and their government may access data stored in some countries.

When protecting and oversharing data, I often hear people say “Byron, who cares? They already have my data!” Although it’s true that “they” have your data, that is a dangerous mindset. Think of it like this: Your phone’s basic tracking is like leaving footprints in the sand. Social media tracking is like giving someone a detailed diary of your thoughts, relationships, behaviors and beliefs; this is why your data is “digital gold,” and everyone wants it.

Here are a few ways to increase your digital protection, just to name a few:
Use strong, unique passwords
Enable two-factor authentication whenever possible
Lock your phone with a strong PIN or biometrics
Use different email addresses for different purposes
Don’t open suspicious attachments
Limit personal information shared on social media
Turn off location sharing
Check privacy settings monthly
Avoid accessing banking sites on public Wi-Fi
Don’t shop online on public networks
Turn off auto-connect to Wi-Fi

I remember growing up and hearing “this is going on your permanent record.” As a good rule of thumb, your data is the product of a free service. No security is perfect, but something is better than nothing. And once information is online, assume it’s permanent.