5 simple ways to regain your data privacy online – starting today

April 9, 2025 TH Author

Are you worried that giant corporations and government agencies are indiscriminately collecting your personal data and then using it inappropriately? You’re not alone.

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In a report released today, security firm Malwarebytes published the results from a survey of 1500 readers of its newsletter. Here’s a sampling of the top-level findings from their report:

89% of survey respondents are concerned about their personal data being used inappropriately by corporations, and an equal number are worried that their data is being used by AI tools without their consent.
77% said that “many online transactions today, from purchases to downloads to creating new accounts, feel like ploys to take my data.”
72% are worried about government access to their data without consent.
70% said they “feel resigned that my personal data is already out there, and I can’t get it back.”
60% of respondents are concerned their phone is listening to their conversations and targeting ads at them.

And the most depressing finding of all:

While 87% of people “support national laws regulating how companies can collect, store, share, or use our personal data,” 60% feel that “we will never have simple, meaningful ways to protect our data.”

Now, let’s be clear: This isn’t a randomized, statistically valid survey that reflects the beliefs of the population at large; it’s a snapshot of the views of a self-selecting group of people who are already concerned enough about privacy and security to sign up for a newsletter on the subject. But in my experience, those bleak, pessimistic views are not uncommon for anyone who’s spent any time thinking seriously about privacy.

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That pessimism is justified in a broad sense. The idea that individuals have any effective control over privacy these days is absurd.

When you walk around, cameras note your presence. When you drive, cameras snap pictures of your license plate. Your smartphone pings cell towers constantly, and the GPS in that handheld device keeps a detailed record of your movements. Police and prosecutors regularly use those details for evidence in criminal cases like the trial of a South Carolina attorney convicted of murder in an infamous 2023 case.

Your online movements are being tracked just as thoroughly, and advertising networks have become ruthlessly effective at combining signals to build a profile of you despite your best efforts to block that tracking.

In the dystopian classic A Scanner Darkly, Philip K. Dick imagined a technology that would make it possible for people to be completely anonymous to the world around them. In that world, undercover cops could wear “scramble suits” that made it impossible for even their supervising officers to know who they really were.

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Alas, that’s science fiction, not actual science. There’s no technology that can make you invisible in the physical world, and there’s no such thing online either.

The challenge is not to be invisible. The challenge is ensuring that your interactions with the online world are transparent. Do you know what information you’re sharing? Do you know what the organization that’s collecting that information is doing with it? What risks are you assuming by sharing that information?

Here are five ways you can start today to take back control of your data.

1. Privacy tools can help

Ad blockers and tracking prevention tools can short-circuit obvious forms of data collection, especially by large online ad networks.

VPNs and anonymous browsing tools can obscure your location and identity when you’re doing anything that involves sensitive information. That’s especially true for political activists or anyone researching topics that might put them in jeopardy in jurisdictions that have criminalized reproductive health options.

For communications involving those topics, it’s essential to use encrypted email and messaging apps.

2. Learn which privacy settings matter

It’s tempting to open the Privacy page in your browser, your smartphone, your desktop operating system, and individual apps and just flip everything to the Off position. That’s overkill and a sure recipe for frustration.

The key settings to look at involve location, camera and microphone access, and cross-site tracking. The nonprofit National Cybersecurity Alliance has a good getting started guide on understanding your privacy settings.

3. Have an alternate identity or two

If you’re interacting with an app or website you don’t know, why should you give them your real name or other personal information? It’s easy to create email aliases for occasions like those.

You can use Google Voice and similar services to create throwaway phone numbers that aren’t associated with your real identity.

Also: Why I use virtual cards for online purchases – and you should too

Use a disposable credit card number from privacy.com when you need to pay for something but you don’t trust the recipient to handle your financial information properly. That service also allows you to set limits on transactions so that a shady service provider can’t use your card for additional unauthorized charges.

4. Cull your apps and services

If you don’t trust a service, don’t use it. In the Malwarebytes survey, 40% of respondents said they had stopped using platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and X because they no longer trusted those services to safeguard their data. If you decide to do the same, be sure to close your account and delete the respective apps on any devices you own.

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It’s also a good idea to go through your mobile device occasionally and eliminate any apps and services you no longer use before they turn into privacy problems. Among survey respondents, for example, 26% said they had abandoned fertility or period-tracking apps due to privacy concerns.

5. Figure out who deserves your trust

Don’t get bogged down by privacy policies. Yes, privacy policies are important and worth reading. But there are plenty of examples of permissions you have to give to perform basic tasks that can be abused. Cloud storage providers require some scary permissions so that they can do what they do. Meanwhile, AI builders are scooping up stuff left and right, in violation of privacy policies and probably the law.

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If you’re sharing information with online services, you’re making a decision to trust them with that information. Do they deserve that trust? If your answer is “no” or “I’m not sure,” then maybe it’s time to look for an alternative.